Cherishing all of the companies of the nation equally

When the history of the 3rd millenium is finally recorded, will the Irish Republic be accorded its proper due as a leader of that political movement which converted societies into economies?

The traditional adage is that you judge a society by how it treats it’s weakest members, but you won’t hear any of that outdated old guff from our elected leaders. Instead you’ll hear about GDP/GNP growth, levels of employment, inward investment, current rates of interest, inflation, taxation etc etc..

For his latest general election marketing campaign, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has decided that the rights of children should be more firmly enshrined in the constitution. The often mis-understood phrase in the 1916 proclamation springs to mind - “cherishing all of the children of the nation equally”.

The success of the Irish economy is largely attributable to the fact that we have become a tax haven for corporate enterprise. The Irish Corporation Tax rate of 12.5% compares with standard rates of 30%-40% which apply to companies in all our major EU partners, the USA, Japan, China, Australia etc etc.

However, Ireland is also the only one of those countries where the standard rate of Personal Tax (20%) is higher, and materially so, than that paid by companies. And remember, for ordinary citizens, tax rates are applied to gross income before deduction of normal living expenses whereas companies are taxed on after-expense income i.e. on their profits.

So any redrafting of our constitution should logically recognise the pre-eminence of the corporate entity rather than the citizen and the principles of any new constitution should reflect that new and more relevant aspiration of “cherishing all of the companies of the nation equally”, reflecting the new reality of the country we seem to be living in.

No-one in their right mind would wish a return to the days of the one-way mailboat ticket, but surely some of our politicians can articulate a vision of what the economy can do for our society, rather than the other way around?

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Examiner.

Bertie, a part-time republican?

Yesterday Taoiseach Bertie Ahern met with Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to discuss the current state of progress in meeting the November 24th deadline for agreement on the restoration of devolved Government in Northern Ireland.

The visit included a photo opportunity in the Taoiseach’s office, with a black and white portrait of Padraic Pearse hanging on the wall behind the Taoiseach’s desk.

However, on RTE News last night, the camera angle revealed a small framed landscape painting resting against the wall, directly behind the Taoiseach’s swivel chair. The implication was obvious - the Pearse portrait was a temporary installation for the benefit of the cameras and, perhaps, the Sinn Fein delegation. The landscape would be back in place after the meeting.

There’s not much you could teach Bertie about spin!

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent.

That Iraq Joke

The most telling thing about John Kerry's botched Iraq joke is that George W. Bush's many detractors can no longer believe that he was the only idiot running for President in 2004.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Times & the Irish Independent.

For Fawkes Sake

Justice Minister Michael McDowell has been issuing dire warnings about the penalties for those caught attempting to import illegal fireworks from Northern Ireland, including the confiscation of cars.
Meanwhile, garda spokesmen have been quoted in broadcast media all day yesterday and today warning of arrests and fines for anyone caught with fireworks.

McDowell’s warnings prompted the following letter (not one of mine) in Monday’s Irish Times, while the whole night tonight has been filled with sound and light as two fingers have been given to the law by the younger population of the borough.

Madam, - I note Minister for Justice Michael McDowell's statement that customs officers have the power to confiscate cars carrying fireworks across the Border. Does this apply if you are driving an old banger? - Yours, etc, M.Kelly

Law for the little people

In today’s Irish Examiner (“de paper”) Harry McGee reports that Transport Minister Martin Cullen has backed Gay Byrne’s criticisms of lenient treatment of speeding drivers by the courts.

Has either man commented publicly on the Taoiseach’s response to recent media claims that his official car exceeded the speed limit? Bertie Ahern’s comment that he was merely a passenger was hypocritical and arrogant.

This isn’t the first time the Taoiseach or one of his ministers have demonstrated their belief that the law only applies to the little people.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent & the Irish Examiner.

The cost of land.

We have one of the least densely populated countries in Europe and yet we also have among the highest land prices. This defies logic until you factor in the zoning and planning laws which can turn landowners into multi-millionaires overnight.

The inflated value of development land has enriched landowners, impoverished house buyers and significantly increased the risk of corruption in the planning system.

The controversy over the cost of land for the new prison at Thornton Hall, at c. €200k per acre, surely suggests that it’s time we tried looking at this through the other end of the telescope.

Instead of incremental rezonings to meet anticipated demand for housing and commercial development, which are open to all sorts of political and financial chicanery, we should be rezoning large swathes of the country with the deliberate objective of creating a significant oversupply of land zoned for residential and commercial purposes.

For example, it might become policy to rezone all land within a certain radius of all towns and villages, with specific exclusions for existing public amenities, heritage and cultural sites etc..

The immediate effect of this oversupply should be to significantly reduce the cost of a site, while concentrating future development in clusters around existing population centres. Availability of more affordable sites should alleviate the demand, with consequent political pressure, for ribbon-development. It should also increase the incidence of one-off houses, providing greater variety in the housing stock and, hopefully, removing the anomaly of “town-house” estates in the middle of nowhere.

The creation of an oversupply of rezoned land should not result in a significantly increased number of houses actually being built - normal market supply/demand factors should take care of that.

The benefits to the house purchaser are clear - far greater choice of location and significantly reduced site costs.

Such a policy would have limited benefit in Dublin, given the scarcity of available land. But expansion of development opportunities in the commuter belt and improved affordability would presumably have some knock-on impact on house/site prices.

The only downside I see is the potential cost of provision of water, sewage and electricity services and there might be a need to revise the regulations regarding provision of some of these services. And, of course, the distress caused to those who currently hold development land of hugely inflated paper value, whose bubble would be burst.

The Celtic Pimple

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has just published his memoirs “Decisions: My Life in Politics”. As the leader of one of the most influential countries in the EU from 1998 to 2005 and a committed European, he must rank as a key observer of the political scene during that period.

We Irish like to think that we exercise a disproportionate weight within the EU, with Bertie Ahern credited in our media with almost superhuman powers of negotiation and conciliation. The last Irish presidency achieved agreement on two highly contentious issues, the draft EU Constitution and the EU Commission presidency. Bertie Ahern was feted in the Irish media as the “Negotiator Supreme”. The Irish media told us of the standing ovations from his fellow premiers which greeted each of his triumphs.

How strange then that Bertie doesn’t rate even a single mention in the Schroder memoirs, much of which are devoted to European and EU politics.

Perhaps it’s an appropriate wake-up call to remind us that the “Celtic Tiger” economy actually represents only 1% of the overall EU economy. The reality is that we’re only the pimple on the backside of the EU economy and our politicians should stop deluding us that everyone else in Europe is looking at us with envy and to us for leadership on how to build a successful economy.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Times, the Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner.

The following letter in response published in the irish Independent:

I was perplexed to read Peter Molloy's attempt to link the fact that Bertie has not appeared in Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's memoirs with the notion that Ireland does not have a good economy and that our economic transformation is nothing to be proud of (Letters, November 3).
Having read Mr Molloy's communist diatribes many times I'd have to doubt if there's ever been an Irish citizen more willing to put down his own country's successes. It is appropriate that he was reading Schroeder's memoirs though.
Mr Molloy's hero is a man who presided over the virtual collapse of the mighty German economy mining for fool's gold in a socialist pit.
KEITH REDMOND, HOWTH ROAD, SUTTON

My response, published by the Independent:

I laughed out loud when I read Keith Redmond‘s attack (Letters, November 8) on my "communist diatribes." His letter significantly misrepresented the content of my earlier letter on which he has chosen to comment, while his attempt to label me "communist" suggests that McCarthyism is alive and well and living on the Howth Road.

Port Tunnel Height

Remember all that controversy about the height of the Port Tunnel and its inability to take the minority of “supercube” trucks?

PD Transport spokesman Tom Morrissey, unveiling the party’s plan to move Dublin Port to Bremore, is quoted in today’s Irish Times Motoring Supplement on that tunnel height topic: “The engineers and policy-makers will not admit that there was a massive mistake in building the port tunnel at 4.65 metres.”

You’d swear that the PDs haven’t been in Government for the past 9 years and have no input to or influence on those policy-makers.

Presumably the tunnel will be high enough to take all those 4x4 SUVs when the yuppies start commuting to their riverside apartments, if the PD plan is ever executed.

Where's Caviston when you need him?

The Government is now proposing to ban drift net fishing for salmon, buying out the fishermen who have traditionally been involved in this activity.

There are news reports that Fianna Fail backbenchers from coastal constituencies are coming under pressure to reverse this position (or presumably to get the maximum possible compensation for this inevitable step).

But here’s the puzzle: Wild salmon is rarely available in your local fishmongers, but when it is it’s one of the most expensive fish you can buy.

However, wild salmon is always available in your local supermarket and is one of the cheapest types of canned fish you can buy.

Has anyone talked to John West to see how he does it? What are we doing that's so different?

Has anyone asked him if, instead of canning the fish, he could freeze it and send it to Ireland where we could presumably enjoy it for a fraction of the cost of the local wild salmon, even allowing for transport costs?

These are the big questions we need answers to! Where’s Caviston?

More Govt Policy that ignores Govt Strategy

Within 12 months of the publication of Transport 21, thePDs have proposed moving Dublin Port to Bremore in what would be one of the biggest infrastructural changes in the history of the state.

The Taoiseach, attending an EU meeting in Finalnd, said he was "broadly supportive" of the idea.

Yet there is no provision for such a move in Transport 21, the Government strategy which is supposed to set out a coherent infrastructure development plan for the next 15 years.

This mirrors the situation where the 2003 Decentralisation scam completely ignored this same Government's National Spatial Strategy, published only a year earlier.

Is it any wonder that local authorities routinely ignore Government policy when they see the Government completely ignores its own major strategies?

How much money has been wasted on such strategy development exercises over the past decade when this Chump Coalition will continue to do their planning on the back of an envelope?

Footnote: Aired by Pat Kenny on his RTE Today programme (minus final paragraph). Published as a letter in the Irish Independent.

Sauce for the goose

So Minister for Justice Michael McDowell proposes to review the rights of the accused in criminal trials. Specifically he’s questioning the right to silence and the withholding from the jury of the criminal record of the accused.

How ironic that this comes at a time when the Government seems to have granted similar rights to itself, as Bertie Ahern and his supporters demanded the right to silence and the past record of Fianna Fail in this area was not deemed to be admissible. Both avenues of escape will, in future, be denied to the accused if Minister McDowell has his way.

This reaction to recent events suggests that criminal court standards of proof are now required in matters of public probity. If it cannot be demonstrated that favours have been done in return, it is now acceptable for politicians to fill their pockets with cash from personal benefactors. Indeed, any suggestion of impropriety is met with charges of an unacceptable intrusion into the personal life of the recipient.

Caesar’s wife must be rotating in her grave, or else damning her husband for his lack of imagination and all those opportunities foregone.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Examiner. Section in italics published as a letter in the Irish Independent.

What's a democracy?

What exactly do we mean by democracy?

The question arises because I’m hearing on the news that one of the most oppressive regimes in the world has just tested a nuclear weapon. That would be the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, a.k.a. North Korea. The former East Germany, one of the most repressive regimes in communist Europe, was of course titled the German Democratic Republic (DDR).

Then we have the USA & UK, the champions of western democracy and determined to export this wonder drug to the rest of the world. George W Bush won a very narrow victory over Al Gore, and a little more over John Kerry, but he has proven to be a very divisive leader in his own country, never mind the wider international community. Margaret Thatcher was equally divisive in her long reign as UK Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. Even today, 16 years later, she is revered and reviled in equal measure, but no-one is neutral about her.

The problem with a “winner takes all” approach in these countries is that it can prove highly divisive. One could reasonably argue that Northern Ireland was a democracy from partition to the dissolution of Stormont as the Unionists would always have enjoyed an overall majority, even without gerrymandering. Surely within “democracy” there rests an inherent understanding that the winner must seek to represent the best interests of all the people to the best of his ability, not just the interests of those who voted for him?

Bush and Thatcher had something in common - they’re examples of leaders driven by right-wing ideologies which deviated significantly from the accepted political norms of their predecessors. Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) and Evo Morales (Bolivia) in South America risk being equally divisive, driven by left-wing ideologies.

For decades post-WWII, “coalition” was dirty word politically. People would point at Italy as a classic case of a political basket-case, with weak coalition Governments frequently lasting less that a year. In a parliament of musical chairs, Romano Prodi is the 37th Prime Minister in 60 years. (Amintore Fanfani is the record holder, having held the office on five different occasions between 1954 & 1987.)

The composition of any Israeli Government appears, on paper, to defy political gravity and parties regularly leave and enter office without governments falling. UK politicians react with horror to the prospect of a hung parliament and the thought of having to form a coalition government.

However, our own experience of coalition governments has been generally very stable and relatively positive. The alignments of right and left together in government has blunted political ideologies and all parties have relative consensus on a broad range of policy areas. It may be relatively dull, the only real excitement coming from financial scandals, but is has been productive.

Based on our own experience and contrasting it with the US & UK experiences, it may be less exciting but it looks like evolution is a more desirable political approach than revolution.

Hugo and Evo please note!

GAA International Rules series

The GAA’s International Rules series kicks off later this month in Galway and is being actively promoted through radio advertising with the tag-line “It's time to play - HARD”.

Given that the future of this series has been regularly threatened because of on-field violence, such advertising seems highly inappropriate.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish independent.

The White & Black Minstrels?

Do you remember the "Black & White Minstrels"? A bunch of white guys who used to black-up their faces and do supposedly black song & dance routines. They went out of fashion when political correctness decided that they were potentially a racist slur of some sort. Maybe it was also the time when that type of show just went the way of Val Doonican.

Well, just back from South Africa where we were entertained by "The Cape Minstrels" - a bunch of black kids who whiten their faces. I hadn't the heart to tell them.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Surge in support for Government

Some reaction to recent Irish Times & Sunday Tribune opinion polls, showing a surge in support for the Government, seems a tad naïve in light of the long-standing refusal of the Irish electorate to punish, at the ballot box, those involved in previous financial scandals.

The funds “lent” to Mr Ahern were only pin-money compared to the gifts showered on his mentor, Charles Haughey.

Mr Haughey, in turn, must have viewed with admiration the corporate stroke of Fianna Fail founder Mr de Valera in taking control of the assets of the Irish Press for a nominal personal investment.

Nowadays such a stroke would probably constitute a corporate fraud, perpetrated on the american investors, but the de Valera family continue to benefit from those assets.

Footnote: Section in italics published as a letter in the Irish Independent

Flatpack Poetry

Here's a new concept that should be a big seller - flatpack poetry that the reader can assemble and customise to suit his/her own outlook on life or just their mood at a particular time. Check out the example below.

Carpe Diem

From starting gun
To closing bell
Elapsed so soon
Employ it well

Now try customising your own last line. e.g. Traditionalist RCs and depressives might substitute "Endure" for Employ, while hedonists might change the entire last line to "Enjoy your spell" or even "Party like Hell!"

So Seamus Heaney
Amend your craft
At flatpack poems
Prepare to graft

Irish Times Opinion Poll

You wouldn't get a cigarette paper between the PDs & FF on ethical standards.

And the Irish Times poll suggests that Michael McDowell is right to abandon any pretence of occupying the high moral ground.

Footnote: Aired on RTEs Saturday View by Rodney Rice.

St Andrew's Agreement

Let’s all hope that today’s “St Andrew’s Agreement” achieves it’s objective and finally brings about implementation of the 1998 “Good Friday Agreement”.

However, watching the various press briefings by the party leaders, it strikes me that a new precondition should be added to the draft proposals: that Gerry Adams should stop murdering the Irish language!

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent and the 2nd paragraph aired on RTEs Saturday View programme by Rodney Rice.

Tues 17th Oct - I had a phone call, purporting to be from the Ulster Unionist Party HQ, thanking me for my letter in the Indo!

New English

Just returned from 2 weeks holidays with another married couple.

Watching them in action together prompted me to invent a new phrase and I commented that while she might be suffering, he was definitely “in naggony”.

On mature reflection, I realise that this exchange took place in the airport café - on the way out!

TCD's Pantomime Horse

Caligula appointed his horse to the roman senate and for years TCD has matched this impertinence by sending both ends of a pantomime horse to Seanad Eireann, in the form of Messrs Ross and Norris.

Today's Irish Times report that 742 TCD electors will be excluded because of a mix-up in the registration process raises some slight hope that one or both of these accomplished self-publicists (windbags) may finally be taken off the public payroll.

Put the PDs out of their misery

Surely there remains no logical reason for the Progressive Democrats to delay rejoining Fianna Fail?

You now wouldn't get a cigarette paper between them on ethical standards.

Footnote: Published as a letter (last tuesday) in the irish Independent & the Irish Examiner

Bertie's friends

Bertie is coming under increasing pressure to reveal details of the monies he received from friends in late 1993, when he was Minister for Finance. This is now being explained as help to pay the legal bills associated with his separation from Miriam, which he’s now claiming that were loans rather than gifts. This would justify not paying tax on them or reporting them in the register of member’s interests.

How he can claim that they’re loans, when nothing has been repaid 13 years later, beggars belief, but then FF have always taken the public for idiots and have generally been proved right!

But wouldn't it be fascinating if Ken Rohan turned out to be one of the friendly donors!

Rohan had furnished his modest home "Charleville" in Enniskerry with very expensive antiques and art which were owned by his company. The Revenue had assessed him as having a BIK liability which was reported to exceed €1m.

In the 1994 Finance Act, Minister for Finance Bertie Ahern introduced an amendment to remove this BIK tax liability. Not only that, but the relief was made retrospective to 1983! Several years later it was reported in the media that Ken Rohan was the sole known beneficiary of this amendment, without this being contradicted by the government or the revenue commissioners.

Pity the PDs didn't think of it earlier

News that the PDs have decided to move Dublin Port to Bremore, near Balbriggan, will possibly come as a shock to their Fianna Fail partners in Government.

The shock for the rest of us is even greater. Listening to them, you'd imagine that the PDs have been in opposition for the past decade.

Instead, they've been jointly responsible for several years of serious traffic disruption on the northside and the spending of over €1bn in digging the Port Tunnel.

Isn't it a pity they didn't think of Bremore a bit earlier. That location would be at a more advanced stage of development, and we'd have been saved the cost and disruption associated with the port tunnel.

Footnote: Published as a a letter in the Irish independent.

Incidentally, there's no priority accorded to such a move for Dublin Port in Transport 21, the major infrastructural strategy published only last November by the coalition Government in which the PDs are partners, which is supposed to set out the major transport plans for the next decade. McDowell really is in "back of envelope" territory.

PDs loss of integrity

What has happened to political integrity in the Progressive Democrats since Des O'Malley took a back seat?

Since the 1997 election, the survival instinct may have forced them to cling to Fianna Fáil, holding their noses in the face of tribunal scandals and ministerial incompetence. In those circumstances, some compromise of their supposedly high standards could be regarded as inevitable.

However, the McCreevy-Parlon decentralisation plan, unveiled in the 2003 budget, was as shameful a piece of political cute-hoorism as you'll ever see. The PDs were seen to be involved in the divvy-up of public service jobs, scattered to various constituencies with little or no regard to the same Government's much touted National Spatial Strategy, published only a year earlier.

This exercise exposed the PDs as being just as morally bankrupt as their FF partners in crime. You only have to think of "Parlon Country" to conjure up an appropriate image of gombeen politics in action.

Now we have the attempt to buy the middle-class vote in urban centres by promising a major reform of stamp duty on houses. I was expecting a giveaway pre-election budget from the Fianna Fáil wing of the current coalition, but they've been outflanked by the PDs.

Mr McDowell claims the Government doesn't need the money raised annually by this tax, at a time when there are clearly insufficient funds going into psychiatric hospitals, refurbishing school buildings, providing social housing, caring for the elderly, services to the handicapped and those with special needs, etc, etc.

The party's name should be changed from PD to SS - Shameful and Shameless.


Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Times and the Irish Independent (the latter dropped the SS punchline).

That bloody speech

You’d have to wonder what Pope Benedict was intending when he wrote his Regensburg address. It’s hard to believe that anyone of even moderate intelligence would fail to see that it was likely to cause offence to muslims.

Indeed, considering the fact that the Vatican Library must house acres of archives on the crusades, the inquisitions, the burning of heretics etc, it’s strange that he should choose to bypass all this evidence of past religious intolerance in order to find an obscure quote from a 14th century Byzantine emperor in order to damn the Prophet Mohammad.

Far better if he had first acknowledged the historical beam in the Christian eye before turning his attention to the mote in the Muslim eye.

One other quote in his speech has been largely ignored: “This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God.”

The fact that the spiritual leader of the catholic church can make such a joke should send a clear signal to religious fundamentalists of all creeds: lighten up!

The reaction in muslim countries is unfortunate but hardly surprising. It highlights once again the threat posed by fundamentalists to civil rights and freedom of worship and, frankly, it needs to be challenged.

For example, freedom of public worship is forbidden to non-muslims in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While there may be some legitimate sensitivity in places such as Mecca and Medina, such a prohibition should not be acceptable in the rest of the kingdom.

So, rather than an attack on Muslim beliefs, employing theological or religious arguments, we need the UN, the EU and our own individual governments to demand freedom of worship on the grounds of civil rights. Saudi Arabia would be a good place to start.

Exposure to other faiths should, over time, demonstrate to ordinary muslims that there is nothing to fear from other religions or the discussion of articles of faith.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent & the Irish Examiner and aired by Pat Kenny on his RTE1 radio programme.

The Chump Coalition

News that the PDs have decided to move Dublin Port to Bremore, near Balbriggan, will possibly come as a shock to their Fianna Fail partners in Government.

The shock for the rest of us is even greater. Listening to them, you'd imagine that the PDs have been in opposition for the past decade. Instead, they've been jointly responsible for several years of serious traffic disruption on the northside and the spending of over €1bn in digging the Port Tunnel.

Isn't it a pity they didn't think of Bremore a bit earlier, there's no reference to it in the highlights of the Coalition Government's Transport 21 strategy published in November 2005. This mirrors the mis-match between the McCreevy/Parlon Decentralisation Programme and the National Spatial Strategy. Probably a result of planning on the back of an envelope.

If there was joined up thinking in Government, and agreement on the strategy, Bremore would be at a more advanced stage of development, and we'd have been saved the cost and disruption associated with the port tunnel.

Another winner from the Chump Coalition.

Pity the Poor Farmer

ICMSA press release 7th September 2006.

The announcement by Kerry Group that it projects a milk price cut of 6c/gallon from 1 January 2007 will mean a €3,000 cut in income for the average milk producer, according to the Chair of ICMSA's Dairy Committee, Dominic Cronin. That projected cut in income comes on top of a drop in income in the current year of approximately the same amount, said Mr Cronin. Falls in income of this magnitude are simply not sustainable and would hasten the exit of large numbers from our once vibrant dairy sector. Mr. Cronin described the decision by Kerry as premature and unwarranted in the face of the recent upturn in the marketplace and he said that in the event of the price cut going ahead it would represent a cruel blow to Kerry's milk suppliers. The situation was now fast approaching where the milk quota will not be supplied unless Co-ops return a price to farmers that will generate realistic returns. It follows that the very future of milk production is now under threat as farmers will not be able to make a full-time living from milk production at current prices irrespective of the scale of their operation, said Mr. Cronin.
The ICMSA Dairy Chairman said that one fact stood above all others in terms of comparison: no employee in Kerry Group will suffer a €6,000 reduction in income over two years and the co-op's dairy farmer suppliers should not have to tolerate this either. The board members elected by farmers must now insist that an immediate freeze in the overall wage bill is introduced. They must also insist that the forecasted price cut for January is not implemented given the critical consequences for Kerry's milk suppliers.

This is just the latest twist in the downward spiral for Irish farmers and also illustrates one of the fundamental problems, which is largely of their own making.

When farmers decided to convert their Co-ops into PLCs, which allowed them to take shares which could be traded on the stock market, they effectively reduced themselves to the producers of raw materials, the lowest rung on the commercial ladder in an increasingly commoditised and globalised agriculture industry.

PLCs must act in the interests of all their shareholders, not just their farmer shareholders. The influence of the original farmer owners has been highly diluted as they have sold shares and PLC Co-ops have raised new capital to fund expansion. Indeed, much of the new investment by the co-ops has been in business abroad.

It would be easier to feel sympathy for farmers if the current situation had not been brought about by their own short-sightedness and greed. In addition, the co-ops have never hesitated to axe workers jobs in order to rationalise or close plants when such decisions benefit the bottom-line.

The other major strategic error has been the pursuit of EU subsidies, investing in farm enterprises that have increasingly defied commercial gravity while inevitably running up the cul-de-sac of an increasingly commoditised global agriculture market. In this folly farmers have been very ably aided and abetted by successive Governments and their own farm organisations, the IFA and ICMSA.

Now they get the Brussels “cheque in the post” regardless of whether they’re continuing to farm or not. Many have been reduced to selling half-acre building plots - at huge prices. No wonder they resent An Taisce and others who complain of bungalow blight and demand planning restrictions.

The paradox is that, with farming now essentially a non-viable commercial activity, agricultural land is changing hands at record prices per acre. The dreaded “hobby farmer” is the new buyer as city-types seek to recreate “the good life” in tandem with their hectic business lives in the big city.

Perhaps no other agricultural enterprise model would have produced any better end result, but surely it’s not just with the benefit of hindsight that the inevitable car-crash outcome for agriculture could have been confidently predicted, considering the strategies that were pursued?

Back to the Big Bang

Published in today's (Monday) Irish Independent under the heading Back to the Big Bang. The section in italics was edited out by the Indo, but it explains where the final points in my letter come from. I was reacting to provocation rather than seeking to be provocative.

"Jason Fitzharris (Letters, September 13) seems to have misinterpreted my intent. I didn't seek to ask what, or who, caused the Big Bang.

I merely pointed out that science is willing to accept the Big Bang hypothesis without being able to explain or prove it, but seems unwilling to extend the same courtesy to those who believe in God.

He states that “ before the Big Bang there was nothing, so there is nothing to measure”. The Big Bang hypothesis explains how our universe, as we now know it, came into being but it does not explain where the original matter, which is now represented by that universe, came from or what form it took.

One of the fundamental principles of science is that matter can neither be created or destroyed. So matter existed in some form "before Big Bang" or that core principle is false.

Which is it to be?"

Regards, etc.

Mayo Mugged (or Mugs)

Kerry 4-15 Mayo 3-5

Gutted. Not by the defeat but by the manner of the capitulation. Mayo were humiliated by Kerry, it must have been their worst performance in any football match since 1951.

Two Mayo goals in a couple of minutes just before half-time brought us back to a 6-point deficit at the interval, but no momentum was evident after the break and Kerry kept ticking over points while Mayo simply made up the numbers.

I haven’t felt this bad since half-time in the France - Ireland rugby match in Paris earlier this year. We were blitzed, losing 29-3 at half-time in a game we had half expected to win. At least Ireland made a comeback in the second half, eventually losing 43-31 thanks, at least in part, to some easing of the French foot on the accelerator with the result in the bag. Mayo’s comeback yesterday lasted all of 3 minutes and then petered out.

Before the start of the season I’d backed Mayo @ 22/1 to win Sam. At least that allowed me to lay off some of that money and end up making a modest profit on Kerry’s win. But I’d have happily lost money to see Mayo win.

Maybe we should take up hurling, or basketball.

Postscript: While the Kerry team returned to major celebrations in Tralee and Killarney, the reception in Castlebar for the Mayo team was cancelled at the players request. It's probably the case that many of them now wish they had lost that famous semi-final to Dublin rather than have such a poor performance in the final on their record.

A sad end to the season and a sad end to the intercounty careers of several Mayo players.

Modest Minister McDowell

New PD leader Michael McDowell had a pretty soft ride on the Pat Kenny show today. Kenny allowed him make all his "slump coalition" jibes without interruption. Not what I'd categorise as a political interview - more of a PR puff piece. Perhaps Kenny is hoping to replace Sam Smyth as his favourite media man - in line for any juicy leaks from Garda files.

During the interview, McDowell repeated his recent demand that Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte identify their major political career achievements.

This is a clear echo of his recent hysterical put-down of Richard Bruton, the implication being that neither man can come near to matching McDowell’s own peerless record of achievement, at least by his own modest reckoning.

If Mr McDowell would reveal to us how, on his unique KNEE-HIGH SCALE, he rates each of his party and cabinet colleagues then perhaps we would be better placed to judge his assessment of his political opponents.

Footnote: an edited version of this published as a letter in the Irish Examiner and the Irish Independent.

Another gain for Women's Lib

Here's another good example of what women are doing with their Women's Lib.

This photo from today's Irish Times shows 14 & 15-year old girls queueing up for the Old Wesley disco last night, a celebration of the Junior Cert results issued yesterday.

It makes you wonder about the "age of consent" legislation which will be under review soon. It's entirely possible that some of these underage girls have had more sexual partners than the TDs who will be debating the appropriate age limits.

Handing down the indictments?

George Bush should indeed be indicted, but not necessarily in his role as President of the USA but rather in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces.

Just look at the facts :

Following the successful invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, it was the US military which failed to take any concrete steps to prevent the massive looting which followed and the subsequent breakdown in law and order. If they had clamped down immediately, there’s a very good chance that existing public services, including the police, might have continued to function with reasonable effectiveness.

The US Military was also responsible for the administration of Abu Ghraib prison, where military personnel were involved in the humiliation and torture of inmates. Nothing else has had as much impact in Arab eyes in confirming that the Coalition forces are invaders and occupiers. Abu Ghraib was a propaganda disaster for the US and a gift to the growing resistance. A bit like internment proved to be a great recruiting sergeant for the IRA.

Then there’s Haditha, where US military stand accused of murdering 24 civilians in November 2005. Another war crime to cut the moral ground from under the occupation.

Then let’s look at the biggest domestic disaster during the Bush presidency - apart from 9/11 which the conspiracy theorists and Michael Moore still haven’t managed to pin on him, despite ongoing efforts to do so.

New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The levees separating Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans were breached by the surge, ultimately flooding 80% of the city and many adjoining areas. Katrina is estimated to be responsible for about 2,000 deaths and over $80bn in damage, much of which has still not been rectified.

Contrary to bullshit from the anti-Bush camp, the water level raised by the hurricane did not come over the top of the levees, which proved to be sufficiently high to meet the challenge. The problem was that they simply weren’t strong enough to withstand the force of the water and large sections collapsed.

The construction and maintenance of these levees is the responsibility of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

So it seems to me that it’s the US Armed Forces who should be in the dock charged with incompetence, lack of discipline and crimes against humanity, both at home and abroad.

Making the case for Dublin Metro

In the Irish Times on 28th August, Frank McDonald reported that leading public transport guru Prof. Austin Smyth had suggested that the economic case for the two Dublin Metro lines, proposed under Transport 21, remained unproven. This, in turn, led to an article by Minister Martin Cullen rebutting this suggestion, but offering no clarification on the economic justification, claiming commercial sensitivity as the justification.

A letter from Prof. Smyth in today’s Irish Times is the latest in what, hopefully, may prove to be an interesting debate and includes the following paragraph:
“Indeed, the Minister's confidence in the economic case for that project makes it even more surprising that he has not taken the public into his confidence by publishing the results of the economic appraisal of the scheme. Commercial sensitivity, even if understandable in the case of financial appraisal, is not an argument for withholding the economic appraisal. These appraisals are not the same.”

The Minister’s refusal to divulge any financial data on the Metro business case suggests that the Government’s key financial document may well have been mislaid. This would be a real tragedy as the other side of that envelope is strongly rumoured to contain the detailed original blueprint for the McCreevy/Parlon decentralisation scheme.

McDowell for Chancellor

So Michael McDowell is the new PD leader and his potential opponents have stitched up the party Presidency and Deputy Leadership - all without an election. That isn’t a cartel-type arrangement, it couldn’t be in the home of the free market, free-for-all competition known as the Progressive Democrats.

Now McDowell plans to target Fine Gael supporters. Just how many old Blue Shirts are still alive and voting, and how will they react to Oberfuhrer McDowell, who is far to the right of General O’Duffy?

Given that McDowell felt free to release Garda files to a selected pet journalist (Sam Smyth) re Frank Connolly’s alleged trip to Columbia on a false passport, how long before Revenue Commissioner files on opposition politicians and supporters start to surface?

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

The Sunday Times included a free CD featuring 10 Jimi Hendrix tracks recorded at a live performance in the Albert Hall.

I’ve been playing it in the car and have arrived at the conclusion that Jimi’s posthumous reputation is built on sand and myth, or else I’m just a philistine.

It’s basically the rock equivalent of serious freestyle (as opposed to easy-listening) jazz - a small minority of aficionados actually appreciate it, the majority pretend to like it and only the brave few say what they really think: it’s crap.

Social and Affordable Housing

In a letter to the Irish Times last Friday, Ciaran Cuffe, Green Party Housing Spokesperson, details party housing strategy, presumably only one of many political pamphlets which will festoon the letters page between now and the next general election.

The key elements are

• Implement Kenny Report recommendation that the state can purchase lands at 25% above their agricultural value (Think what we’d be saving on McDowell’s new prison in Meath!).
  
• Implement the 20% rule for social and affordable housing.
  
• Remove all property-based tax reliefs.
  
• Abolish stamp duty for older people trading down.
  

Incidentally, his letter is almost a straight lift from his August 2006 Constituency newsletter recently popped through my letter-box, a fine example of Green Party recycling policy in action.

On a serious note, I'd like to add a suggestion to those outlined above: that the 20% Capital Gains Tax levied on profits generated through the sale of development land should be ring-fenced and applied only to the provision of social and affordable housing.

At least in that way the speculators could be seen to make some contribution to the resolution of a problem they are at least partly responsible for creating.

It's not SMART!

It’s not magic, or even Smart, it’s just Fanning!

How Smart shareholders must enjoy watching the Keith Barry TV ads promoting Smart Telecom services. I wonder if they’ll be running next week after the company admitted that it has run out of cash and its day-to-day running costs are being funded by loans from a major shareholder.

The share price was halved in a single day on the London AIM and they now languish at an all time low of 4.25p. DO NOT TOUCH.

It was reported that Smart CEO Oisin Fanning resigned on health grounds, which was a smart move on his part as his life might well have been in danger if shareholders get hold of him.
This is his second high-profile business disaster in recent times. His MMI stock broking venture went belly-up a couple of years back, with more than a whiff of financial skull-duggery alleged. All denied by the company, of course. Suffice it to say that money was lost - other people’s money.

He and his partners in MMI liked to present themselves as unconventional Dublin stockbrokers - trendy suits, flash cars etc.. One of his compadres sported a long pony-tail and wore highly-tooled, high-heeled, very pointed cowboy boots. I couldn’t imagine that they were comfortable to wear - he probably kept a pair of tartan carpet-slippers in his desk drawer.

I’ve no doubt Mr Fanning will surface again in some new business guise within the next year or so. Keep an eye on him but keep your money in your wallet.

Steve Irwin RIP

Yer a langer!

The following letter from John A Murphy was published in today’s Irish Times, under the heading “A good deal of a prig”. This prompted my response detailed below which, I suspect, Madam is unlikely to publish.

Madam, - For a mad moment there, watching the RTÉ interview with Dr Garret FitzGerald last Sunday week, I understood him to say he was "a good deal of a prick" in his younger days. And I thought, delightedly: what an endearing confession, what an admirable admission of human imperfection, and what an expression of the common touch.
Alas, how disappointed I was to learn from your Corrections column (August 29th) that all he had said was "prig". And how priggish and humourless it was of him to insist on the correction, and to remind us so huffily that "he would never use such language". - Yours, etc,
JOHN A MURPHY, Douglas Road, Cork.

My response:

Madam, - In his comments about Garret Fitzgerald, John A Murphy (letters 6th Sept) reveals himself to be "a good deal of a langer".
Regards etc.

Bottle for the battle

At the wrap-up press conference today, following the Fianna Fail conclave in Westport, Minister Brian Cowen claimed to “have the bottle for the battle”.

Such was the bright red glow of his bulbous nose that you’d be fairly sure that he had the bottle last night too. Or two!

Perhaps Bertie should give him some make-up tips and an allowance.

Dublin Overground System

In the following item, I'm much happier that I'm posing the right question than I am confident that I've proposed the right answer, but here goes anyway.

Today’s Irish Times features a response from Minister Martin Cullen to Frank McDonald’s article last week on the viability of Metro, while page 7 features an ad from DLRCoCo updating readers on the progress of the roadworks in Blackrock which have disrupted traffic for several months. One of the major objectives of these roadworks is to provide bus lanes on that stretch of road.

The Minister was also reported last week to have promised another 100 buses for Dublin Bus who, according to their website, already operate 950 buses on 140 routes. When one adds in the capital value of the roadspace now being dedicated to Bus lanes, the investment in bus transport in the city is very substantial indeed.

Despite this, other than the bus routes in my immediate area, I must confess to almost total ignorance about what routes service which areas, how they intersect with one another or how I would plan a cross-city bus trip which involved more than one route. There are certain tools on the Dublin Bus website, but without immediate access to the internet I would be snookered. Even there, timetables have a large variety of additional symbols and footnotes which each indicates some caveat attaching to a particular service.

Yet I can visit London or Paris and happily negotiate an unfamiliar city by underground/metro, using a simple system map and confidently changing lines as often as required in order to get from A to B.

Before enduring the disruption and cost of the proposed Metro, surely we should be trying to create a coherent “Dublin Overground System” where bus services could be communicated in a clear manner to current and potential users and managed in a way which improves frequency and reliability.

A Possible Model: The Dartboard would require a radical simplification of the current 140 routes:

10-12 key radials routes from the city centre to the M50 or key suburban hubs, where park & ride facilities should, where possible, be provided at each terminus. Feeder bus routes would take travellers to more distant destinations. These major radial routes would be the focus of QBC development, which might require the introduction of one-way systems along sections of the route.

Within the M50, the radial routes would be overlaid with a 8-10 orbital routes, radiating out in concentric circles - linking with DART and Luas stations on their routes.

The overall effect would be something like the wires on a dartboard.

Such a grid should ensure that everyone would be within half a mile of a bus route, with a simplified route map providing clarity as to how/where to link into the rest of the grid.
The reduction in the number of routes should also mean that more buses can be dedicated to each route, this increasing frequency.
Use of QBCs and prioritising buses at traffic light junctions should reduce journey times and improve the relevance of timetables.
Use of GPS should permit the display of “next bus due” information at bus stops.

In conjunction with this change, additional measures would need to be implemented to reduce/restrict car traffic in and into the city, in addition to the park & ride facilities at each radial route terminus e.g.

- a congestion charge, like London, for the area inside the two canals. This might only operate during morning rush hours Monday to Friday.
- a ban on cars delivering pupils to schools - coupled with a change in school start/finish times and the provision of free bus transport to students between say, 9.00am & 4.30pm.

I have no doubt that there are many holes in this strawman proposal, it may not be feasible and it certainly would mean significant changes for existing bus users - presumably some of them unwelcome.

But the objective of such a proposal would be to start a public debate on how bus services are actually delivered in Dublin, given the existing level of investment and that proposed under Transport 21 for the larger Dublin public transport infrastructure.

Germany 1 Ireland 0

And if we're being honest, we were lucky to get Nil.

New Pact for Dun Laoghaire Baths

Responses published to date to my provocative letter have represented most viewpoints of the protestors, except the ideological one of the SWP, whose Richard Boyd Barret was the chief organiser and orchestrator of the opposition to the original Council proposal.

The common unifying theme of the letters has been that they disagreed with my negative assessment, but then proceeded to either state diverging motivations for the protest or for how it should be funded.

Most of the parties have made much of the progress they’ve made in agreeing a revised pact for the development. The reality is that what has been agreed is a total capitulation by local politicians to the demands of the various pressure groups which comprised the protest. A sceptic might call the new pact “Munich II“.

The key elements of the Munich II pact are
- no residential element.
- no high rise.
- a publicly owned baths facility on the site.
- application for central Govt funding.

The last point is a real giveaway - “you can have everything you want and we’ll try to get someone else to pay for it”. Clearly this pact is highly aspirational and there is a lot of work to be done before anything can actually be implemented. Consultants will have their work cut out to come up with a viable and sustainable proposal.

A major concern must be the commitment to a publicly-owned baths without firm evidence that there is a sufficient demand to make justify it, particularly from young people.

I still believe that many of the protestors were suffering from Bewley’s Syndrome. If, as claimed by one letter writer, 99% of protestors were regular and frequent users of the baths, summer and winter, then the baths would still be open.

If the council simply re-invent the same amenity in some slightly tarted-up format, it will fail as it has in the past. The installation of slides in the early 1990’s (?) failed to revive the fortunes of the baths.

GAA cross-community effort

For decades the GAA has been viewed by Unionists as the “sporting wing of the IRA”, which is hardly surprising with many GAA clubs and grounds named after republican heroes such as Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, Roger Casement, the 1916 signatories etc..

The Unionists are not always wrong but hopefully a couple of events in the past week will start to build a new relationship.

St Brigid’s GAA Club hosted a friendly football match with the PSNI and the GAA central council decided to withhold tickets from Sinn Fein representatives because of their misuse, for political purposes, of Casement Park.

All such actions by the GAA, which are aimed at reducing sectarianism and encouraging cross-community participation, should be loudly applauded.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent & the Irish Times.

Does God Exist?

Firstly let me record my profound thanks to William Reville for replacing me, temporarily at least, as the hate figure on the letters page of the Irish Times.

I didn’t see his original article on the existence of God but it certainly has provoked a long and heated response from the atheist science section of the letter-writing crank population.

The reaction to William Reville's article suggests that fundamentalist non-believers have much in common with fundamentalist believers and both need to learn the same lesson : that tolerance is a virtue, not a weakness.

It’s amusing really because, while proving the existence of God is indeed a hugely challenging task, proving his non-existence is actually impossible. Worthy of a Nobel Prize, no doubt.

Yet science has always been willing to allow itself the luxury of unprovable hypotheses.

The existence of the Universe is explained by the Big Bang Theory, but science is unable to say what, or who, caused the Big Bang to occur and where the original matter, which now constitutes the ever-expanding universe as we know it, came from.

Footnote: The section in italics published as a letter in the Irish Times. A variant published in the Irish Independent.

The Baths Saga - Interim review

My provocative assessment of the situation regarding redevelopment of the Baths site (Irish Times Aug 17th) has prompted, to date, 4 published responses - most of them robust and all of them disagreeing with my position. Two of those responses came from the protestor side of the debate, the other two came respectively from the executive and political wings of the local county council.
I’ve documented below some key quotes from each letter, in the order in which they were published.

DYLAN TIGHE (Aug 24th) “I can guarantee Mr Molloy that 99% of those present were regular and enthusiastic patrons of the baths. …….The fact is that we all used the baths, both winter and summer, and call for it to be reopened once again”

BOB WADDELL, Sandycove & Glasthule Baths Action Group (Aug 26th)
“Let us not forget that the massive protests by many thousands of our citizens were against the handing over of what is a public amenity site to private developers for an eight-storey luxury apartment complex.”

OWEN P KEEGAN, County Manager, DLRCoCo (Aug 25th) “we will shortly be engaging consultants to prepare proposals for a major environmental/amenity improvement scheme covering the area between the East Pier and Sandycove. The overall objective will be to create a world class amenity for our own residents and visitors to enjoy.”

“I do not wish to underestimate the likely difficulties in financing whatever project emerges or to discourage funding from outside agencies. However, it remains my view that the true measure of the value of a project to the council is the extent to which the council is prepared to invest its own money to ensure its completion!”

Cllr JOHN BAILEY (Aug 30th) “The suggestion that the project be funded exclusively from council and port revenue is impractical.”
“There is wide acceptance that these grounds should be kept in public ownership and anyone who doubts that special funding from central Government is needed for the project should study the Indecon Review of local government financing.”

For the protest representatives, Dylan Tighe guarantees that the 99% of the protestors (numbered at 3,000+ by chief organiser Richard Boyd Barret on his http://www.swp.ie/ website) were regular and enthusiastic users of the baths, while Bob Waddell seems to differ discretely, pointedly reminding us that the protest was against the use of the site for an 8-storey apartment development.

For the council, the County Manager doesn’t wish “to discourage funding from outside agencies” but clearly envisages the council having to fund most if not all of any development. This is dismissed by Cllr Bailey as “impractical” and he insists that special funding from Central Government will be needed.

The positions outlined above clearly demonstrate that what exists between the parties above could not be described as a shared consensus view. The protagonists may well have achieved a cease-fire but they certainly don’t have a treaty.

In addition, the proposed employment of consultants is a classic ploy for dealing with hot political potatoes. It allows the problem to be long-fingered and passes the monkey to a supposedly neutral 3rd party. That status can then be used as cover when some of the current participants dislike whatever recommendations eventually emerge.

It is also clear that there is no guarantee of finance for whatever option or options are recommended. This alone will tend to hamstring the consultants, who presumably will want to produce feasible proposals, yet have no indicative budget to work with.

And if there’s enough resistance, the consultants report can be more easily shelved than something developed by the council itself.
You could wallpaper Leinster House with the pages of unimplemented recommendations from the many consultants reports commissioned by Government over the past decade.

And even then - do you "harbour" any doubts about the County Council's ability to develop and manage an agreed solution? Consider the following:

The County Manager also says that “The overall objective will be to create a world class amenity for our own residents and visitors to enjoy.”
Dun Laoghaire already enjoys such an amenity - the harbour. In particular, the East Pier is enjoyed by walkers of all shapes sizes and ages throughout the year. People come from a wide catchment area to “walk the pier”, some strolling, some power-walking. Some are pushing buggies, others pushing wheel-chairs. Dogs, wives and husbands are all walked on the pier.
There is a public toilet located on the East Pier and its maintenance is the responsibility of DLRCoCo..

This toilet has been locked up for several months now. Yet there is no notice to

• apologise for the inconvenience caused
• advise patrons of the reasons for closure
• indicate a date for reopening
• provide directions to alternative facilities.

Is this an example of how the council believes you manage a “world class amenity”?

Finally, with regard to the baths site, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Frankly, I’d prefer to be eating humble pie in a couple of years time, rather than saying “I told you so!”.

Penalty Points System

In the interests of road safety, I’ll get penalty points if I forget to fasten my seat belt or I use my mobile phone while driving.

But if I fail my driving test, I can just hop back into the car and continue driving unaccompanied without being penalised.

Does this make any sense or am I just slow?

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent.

O'Leary v. The Crown

A short letter in the Irish Examiner that made me laugh:

IS there any truth in the rumour that Ryanair is suing the British government for 99 pence, but that taxes, fees and ‘other related charges’ have driven the real figure up to £3 million?



If this ever comes to court, which is probably unlikely, the lawyers fees could well come to more than £3m!

Blondes do have more fun!

Mayo 1-16 - Dublin 2-12

I watched the All Ireland semi-final on tv this afternoon, most of it through my fingers. Particularly the Dublin blitz at the start of the second half which left them seven points ahead, when I was sure that we were in for a humiliating hiding.

By some miracle Mayo came back to win the match by a single point. So blondes do have more fun! I watched the highlights (pun intended) later on RTE in a much more relaxed state of mind and Mayo won again!

Having lived in Dublin for over 40 years, more than 80% of my life, I’m surprised at my own affinity to my home county and my complete lack of interest in the fortunes of Dublin, even when they’re not playing Mayo. Proof perhaps that you can take the man out of the bog but you can’t take the bog out of the man.

Having watched the RTE highlights programme, I went channel hopping and ended up watching Film 4 which was showing Jack Nicholson in “As good as it gets”. I just hope that wasn’t an omen for next month’s final against Kerry.

Up Mayo!

Dun Laoghaire Plage - a modest proposal

(Click image to enlarge)

The French invention of “Paris Plage” 200 kilometres from the sea has prompted me to propose “Dun Laoghaire Plage" as a possible local solution.

The Proposal

This involves the construction of a new breakwater linking the baths to the back of the East Pier - possibly at the location of the “geographical pointer” there. The breakwater would require some type of sluice gate and/or pumping mechanism to both maintain a desired water level inside the breakwater and the ability to refresh the water periodically to maintain water quality.

The newly enclosed area would now be filled with a beach, made of imported sand, and a relatively shallow lagoon. The enclosed nature of the construction means that the area of beach available to the public will be constant as it is not subject to tidal fluctuations. Also the depth and expanse of enclosed water will also be constant. This should provide a greater degree of safety for users.

The orientation and layout of the artificial beach are important considerations: that section of sea-front backing onto Queens Road is effectively north-facing and thus the least attractive from a sun-bathing perspective. (This problem also impacts on the amenity attractiveness of the baths) The artificial beach backing onto the new breakwater will be south-facing and get the most exposure to direct sun, while the section backing onto the East Pier is east-facing and will get good morning sun, but no evening sun.

The proposed Plage should provide at least twice the maximum area of beach available at Sandycove, without the periodic tidal incursions. The breakwater could be constructed so as to facilitate sea swimming from the seaward side of the construction.

It should be relatively straightforward to create café, shop & toilet facilities to the rear of the East Pier (there are currently fenced off shelters there), perhaps augmented by a Liffey-style boardwalk. More sophisticated dining and leisure facilities could be provided in the old baths premises, the objective being to provide an integrated leisure complex which can accommodate all the family, and families of varying means.

The addition of a beach and a safe swimming/paddling area would significantly increase the attractiveness of the overall amenity. The use/function of the old swimming pools and premises would need to be reviewed in light of the expanded adjoining swimming facility.

Ongoing Maintenance

Maintenance of the area - both in terms of cleanliness, facilities and ambience (e.g. no public drinking, loud music etc.) will be critical to the success of the complex. The Council might consider imposing a modest entry charge which would pay for cleaning, security & maintenance staff, while hopefully discouraging undesirable elements. This income would also be supplemented from rents from concession holders within the complex.

Paris Plage only operates for the summer months and there’s no reason why DLRCoCo might not consider operating Dun Laoghaire Plage on, say a six-monthly basis - April to September at least in the initial years. Allowing the area to “flood” while closed would ensure that it didn’t become an eyesore during that period.

Demand for the beach element will be largely driven by weather considerations and winter storms might well make it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the artificial beach on a year-round basis. In addition, it would be desirable to provide some form of covered shelter to cater for our sometimes unpredictable summer weather.

Role of the Harbour Company?

Clearly this particular “Plage” proposal involves use of a section of the East Pier so could not progress without the approval and involvement of the Harbour Company.

Dun Laoghaire Harbour is the major landmark for the town and probably it’s most used public amenity. People come from a wide catchment area “to walk the pier”. The amenities - café, shops etc provided for the Plage could also be used by pier walkers, thus materially enhancing that amenity.

The Harbour Police could be used to provide security on the Plage, thus maintaining the high standard of the facility.

If the Plage was to be developed in conjunction with the Carlisle Pier proposals, it might well help to deflect some of the public objections to that particular development. Particularly if part-funding of the Plage development and/or its ongoing maintenance were linked to the revenue streams from the Carlisle Pier development.

Benefits to Dun Laoghaire

The proximity of the proposed Plage to the town centre should be beneficial to trade there.

Existing beaches at Sandycove and Seapoint are too far removed from the commercial centre, and the former is too small, to be of material benefit. The numbers using Sandycove on sunny days would suggest a significant demand for such a facility, particularly for young families.

The provision of this amenity should revive some of the tourist trade in the town. There was a time when there were several small hotels on the seafront, though current property values suggest that a return to that situation is highly unlikely.

Costs

I am not is a position to cost this proposal, but the breakwater and artificial beach elements seem like a “modest proposal”.

The actual construction cost should not be too great and the ongoing maintenance would probably pose the biggest financial challenge to the local council. Partnering with the Harbour Company would obviously make financial sense if that was feasible.

The renovation/conversion of the old baths complex is likely to require a greater investment and might be left to a "phase 2" period of the overall development until the "Plage" has proven it's drawing power.

The Empire Strikes Back

Well at least I'm getting their attention, this is published in today's Irish Times. Mind you, the employment of consultants is the classic way for politicians to deal with any hot potato. You could wallpaper Government Buildings with the various unimplemented consultants reports commissioned over the past couple of years.
That said, I like the tone of Owen Keegan's apparent commitment and he is a man who comes with a reputation for getting things done - even if he became a hate figure for Dublin motorists. Time will tell. I wonder if this would be a good time to pitch "Dun Laoghaire Plage" to him? Maybe not.

Madam, - Peter Molloy (August 17th ) is mistaken in his view that "last year's protests have scared local politicians and the county council is unlikely to propose any new initiative for fear of another backlash. Consequently we could be faced with years if not decades of inaction on this bricked up and derelict eyesore on the seafront ."
On the contrary, we will shortly be engaging consultants to prepare proposals for a major environmental/amenity improvement scheme covering the area between the East Pier and Sandycove. The overall objective will be to create a world class amenity for our own residents and visitors to enjoy. We envisage a facility in keeping with the world class setting and incorporating the S2S - Sandycove to Sutton Promenade and Cycleway project. The development will also be consistent with the recommendations of the council's baths subcommittee. Any new proposals will of course be put out to public consultation.
I do not wish to underestimate the likely difficulties in financing whatever project emerges or to discourage funding from outside agencies.
However, it remains my view that the true measure of the value of a project to the council is the extent to which the council is prepared to invest its own money to ensure its completion! - Yours, etc,
OWEN P KEEGAN, County Manager, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

A shot across my baths!

The following letter is published in today’s Irish Times. This is what you'd call a robust rebuttal of my last published contribution on Dun Laoghaire Baths and a fine example of the old adage that attack is the best means of defence.

I defend Mr Tighe’s right to indulge in sweeping generalisation (while I question the veracity) and his use of very robust language, mainly because I indulge in such things myself. Bear in mind that the SWP organisers claim that over 3,000 participated in their protest march on June 12th, so 99% of that would be 2,970+. I suspect that we're seeing yet another incidence of the dreaded "Bewley's Syndrome".

In fact I particularly like the pithy construction of his sentence “This is a stunningly ignorant conclusion and a complete fabrication” and will be looking for an opportunity to employ it myself on some other topic in the future.

Madam, - Peter Molloy (August 17th) says it is a sad fact that most of the middle-class people who protested against the planned development for the site of DúLaoghaire Baths had probably never used the baths when they were open.
Probably indeed! As one of the aforementioned middle-class from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown with wide contacts and ties with my community I can guarantee Mr Molloy that 99 per cent of those present were regular and enthusiastic patrons of the baths. One would have to be living in total seclusion not to know that in the local area.
This is a stunningly ignorant conclusion and a complete fabrication.
The fact is that we all used the baths, both winter and summer, and call for it to be reopened once again as Dublin's, and possibly Europe's, only outdoor public seaweed baths.
(In fact, many of the older protesters first learned to swim there under the renowened teacher Mr Gillespie.)
The revenue from tourism alone would more than help assuage the financial fantasies of the council, who, as witnessed by the protests, have acted in a thoroughly selfish and anti-democratic fashion.
How many times would those same councillors use the baths? As many times as Mr Molloy I suspect - zero! - Yours, etc,
DYLAN TIGHE, Aubrey Park, Shankill, Co Dublin.

"Little Paris" - I don't think so!

Recent reports of drunk and disorderly anti-social behaviour on the “parisienne-style” Liffey boardwalk will hardly come as a surprise to anyone who spends much time in town, particularly in the evening hours. The prevalence of public drinking of cans of beer and the apparent indifference of the gardai to this activity must inevitably lead to such situations arising, albeit in a minority of cases.

About a month ago, on a Friday night, my wife took me to see “A Constant Wife” in the Gate Theatre. (I still don’t know what point she was trying to make.) We took the DART to Connolly station, arriving at about 7.15pm, and walked up Talbot St and O’Connell St to the theatre, a distance of about one mile. En route we passed several groups of alfresco beer drinkers at that early hour, but not a single garda was seen.

Leaving the theatre at about 10.30pm, we encountered even more public drinkers, some of them now extending white polystyrene coffee cup begging bowls as we passed. It wasn’t aggressive begging but it was off-putting. The plinths of the newly installed Barry Flanagan Rabbit sculptures have provided more bench-space for these activities.

We quickly decided against having a drink in town and headed back to the DART by the same route. Again, we didn’t see a single garda on our walk. I noted that the Kylemore Café and the adjoining Beshoff’s were already closed at this relatively early hour. We saw no violence or even a row, but the combination of elements made it an uncomfortable location and suggested that it wouldn’t take much to spark an incident.

Considerable disruption has been endured and a small fortune spent on attempting to convert O’Connell St into our very own Champs-Elysées. However, unless steps are taken to curtail the anti-social activities of some it’s denizens, it’s going to remain a no-go area at night for most sensible sections of the population.

I hate to think what visitors must make of it.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent and the Irish Examiner.

Cetic Tiger or Paper Tiger?

This photo, published in the Irish Times on 1st August, shows the Taoiseach and Tanaiste emerging from a special cabinet meeting in Avondale, Parnell's former home in Co Wicklow.

My Aunt Vyvyenne has drawn it to my attention with the comments that Bertie looks like he's been dressed by Oxfam while Mary might easily pass as the representative of the People's Republic of China.

How can people be so critical?

(Click on image to enlarge)

Men's Liberation

Hats off to Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company and/or Stena Line.

Taking a pee in the gents at the ferry terminal today, I noticed a strange contraption attached to the wall.

Closer inspection revealed it to be a fold-down baby-changing table.

John Waters and I have been campaigning for such facilities for years, though I have no intention of ever using the thing.

A second observation:

Washing my hands, I noticed that the adjacent vending machine dispensed a variety of items - from mints to condoms.

I couldn't help wondering how often has some drunk wanting mints emerged with a packet of condoms, and vice versa?

Bono & the Tax System

Pity poor old Bono - he spends half his life working to relieve poverty and disease in the third world and, in an instant, his tax advisers have people calling for his head. Personally, I’d give him a “get out of jail free” card for his all good works, though I might be less well disposed towards the other fat cat members of the U2 corporation.

What we seem to forget is that, in a democratic society, the taxation system is the main mechanism for the redistribution of wealth. We don’t just pay taxes so that the road system can expand to accommodate our ever increasing number of cars, or for extra gardai and prison places to keep the proletariat in their place, or to keep government ministers in shiny new mercs each year. We also pay tax so that those in need can be supported, either directly through payments or indirectly through the provision of support services. The tax system also funds the national contribution to third world aid.

Aggressive tax-avoidance has to be recognised as anti-social behaviour, yet it is practiced by many of our wealthiest and most prominent citizens. Indeed, some of our most notable worthies claim to be non-resident for tax purposes, despite their presence at every dog-fight and dance here.

In his Irish Times column this week, Vincent Browne highlights the ludicrous situation where hospitals are dependent on charity to provide essential services which should be properly funded from the public purse. It’s easy to find lots of other examples e.g. run-down schools, over-crowded prisons, lack of affordable nursing home places etc..

Tax avoidance may not be a crime but neither is it victimless. Provided the taxation system is relatively fair and the administration is not overly corrupt, we all have a duty to contribute our fair share to the community chest of public funds.

Footnote: Published as a letter in the Irish Independent (twice by mistake!) & the Irish Examiner.

3rd World Twinning

This morning, Ryan Tubridy interviewed 3 Irish entrepreneurs who had visited Africa recently with Goal. The objective was for each man to identify an opportunity and help set up a business for local benefit.

I sent him the following email which he aired. I had originally suggested the idea about 12-18 months ago to a group associated with helping East Timor but they don't seem to have progressed it.

As you drive into any town in Ireland, you see the signs that tell you that this town is twinned with a community in France, Germany, USA etc..

I’ve always wondered why Concern, Trocaire, Goal etc haven’t set up a similar twinning programme with communities in the 3rd world. Wouldn’t it be great to see those signs on our roadsides?

Your interview with the entrepreneurs illustrate some of the benefits and skills that could be transferred. In addition to obvious fund-raising programmes, there are all sorts of exchange programmes that could benefit both communities. Even transition-year students (suitably supervised) could be involved in support programmes which would greatly benefit their own personal development as well as the 3rd world communities they are assisting.

For the Special Olympics towns and communities around Ireland acted as hosts to visiting athletes and their families. They did a fantastic job and the “host town” signs are still up around Ireland.

This suggests that there is a large appetite out there to do something tangible to help - but people need the organisational structure to get it moving.

Development in Dun Laoghaire

Following the publication of my post of 31st July as a letter in the Irish Times, it drew the following response from the Harbour Company, published 8th August, which is followed by my response, also published in the Irish Times on 17th August.

Madam,

Peter Molloy's interesting suggestion (August 1st) that the redevelopment of the public baths in Dun Laoghaire should be funded from the profits of Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company unfortunately ignores the commercial realities which the harbour company has to deal with every day.
His conclusion that the company is highly profitable is based on his analysis of its published annual accounts for 2002, which show a profit after tax for the year of €2.5 million. The harbour company's after-tax profit in 2005 was €2.7 million - a growth rate which has failed to keep pace with inflation in the intervening period. There is one very obvious reason for this: the decline in passenger numbers through the ferry terminal. In 2002 ferry passenger numbers amounted to 1,015,000; in 2005 the figure was 851,000.
Over the same period the company has had to deal with the rising cost of maintaining and repairing the harbour. The recent refurbishment of the lower level of the East Pier, for example, cost about €3 million. Work which is about to begin on repairs to the structures of both the East and West Piers will cost more than €10 million. The harbour company spends about €3 million a year on the conservation of the historic harbour as a public facility to be enjoyed by this and future generations - and it is committed to doing so for the foreseeable future without recourse to the taxpayer.
As we are a state commercial company which receives no funding from the State, we have to rely on our profits to generate the funds necessary to carry out this work.
This is why the company is pursuing new sources of revenue. The marina and the Crofton Road development are two very obvious examples of this. We expect the redevelopment of Carlisle Pier to be another. The company cannot contemplate the redevelopment of the pier without the realistic expectation that it will generate a reasonable profit.
Unfortunately, the Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company is not now and is unlikely, for the foreseeable future, to be able to contribute from its profits to the redevelopment of the public baths by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. However, the company does contribute €700,000 a year in commercial rates to the council. In addition, it contributes about €1 million a year to the State in corporation tax and VAT. Both figures are likely to grow substantially when Carlisle Pier is redeveloped.
This company already makes a substantial and growing financial contribution to the Exchequer and the county council. If the recipients of those contributions were to direct them towards the redevelopment of the public baths, most reasonable people would see this as a sensible and appropriate use of funds generated by Dun Laoghaire's waterfront. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL HANAHOE, Chief Executive, Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company

My response, published 17th August:

Madam,

Having been abroad, I’ve just seen Michael Hanahoe’s response (8th August) to my suggestion (1st August) regarding the possibility of cross-funding Dun Laoghaire Baths from the successful Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company. It is indeed nice to see an all too rare example in these Celtic Tiger times of the once popular irish tradition of “an beal botch“.

However, as chief executive of the Harbour Company, his desire to quickly insert a forty-foot pole between his company and the financial white elephant of a re-instituted public baths is entirely understandable. If the baths are re-opened in their current format they will continue to lose money. It’s a sad fact that most of the middle-classes who protested last year had probably never used the baths when they were open and will never use them if they’re re-opened.

However, a decision on the future of the baths is required and it is ultimately a political one. If the baths are deemed to need an ongoing subsidy then this must be provided from either local or central government funds. If neither is willing to commit to such a subvention, then the baths should be demolished to allow continuous public access along the seafront and/or the site to be used for some commercial purpose.

Last year’s protests have scared local politicians and the County Council is unlikely to propose any new initiative for fear of another backlash. Consequently, we could be faced with years, if not decades, of inaction on this bricked-up and derelict eyesore in a prominent location on Dun Laoghaire seafront.

The Harbour Company, on the other hand, has displayed a willingness to take commercial decisions and risk public disfavour, as exemplified by the selection of one of the less-favoured designs for the Carlisle Pier development.

If a commercially viable solution is required, then it might make sense to transfer ownership of the baths to the Harbour Company with a mandate to effect the necessary changes, even if Mr Hanahoe doesn’t want this particular political and financial monkey.

Regards etc..

The PDs bite back!

Following publication of my entry of 31st July in the Indo, the PDs had a response published on 10th August, which I reproduce below. This is followed by my own response to the PD rebuttal.

I read with interest Peter Molloy's 'A Prayer for the poor PD's' (Letters, August 4) with some amusement. It is a long time since I have seen the word gombeen used in Irish political discourse; in fact I am sure in fact that many of your younger readers will have no idea what it means. When I was growing up it referred to a style of politics dominated by personality politics and clientalism.
It is clear from Mr Molloy's letter that he is himself is a practitioner of this style of politics as all his criticisms of the Progressive Democrats are focused on issues of personality rather than issues of policy. I had thought that we as a society had moved beyond such a trivial analysis of political matters.
Mr Molloy appears to believe that Tom Parlon is a gombeen politician. I had the pleasure recently of seeing Minister Parlon chair a meeting of farmers in his own constituency. During the meeting a suggestion was made from the floor on a matter of policy which was to say the least impracticable. The response of any Gombeen politician would have been to make soothing noises, promise to raise the issue at the highest level etc. The Minister did not give that response he said straight out it was a bad idea, and why it was a bad idea. Straight talk is not the mark of a Gombeen politician.
Mr Molloy appears to believe that Minister McDowell is unfit for office because he lost his temper, and that he has become "increasingly belligerent".
No one would claim that Minister McDowell is a shy, shrinking violet, but then again who would want a shrinking violet as Minster for Justice?
Minister McDowell had the courage to stand up to Sinn Fein when the overwhelming consensus was that a blind eye should be turned to their crimes, when see no evil seemed to be the public motto. Nor has he been afraid to push through vital reforms in law enforcement in the face of concerted opposition from powerful vested interests. His judgement has been questioned, but more often vindicated.
When Minister McDowell lost his temper, he made a full and gracious apology on the floor of the house; if it was good enough for Richard Bruton surely it should be good enough for Mr Molloy.
Minister McDowell is a refreshing change, a politician who knows his mind and is unafraid to speak it in a forthright and fearless fashion.
Finally, Mr Molloy has the absolute temerity to question Tanaiste's competence.
There can be no doubt that the single greatest challenge facing the Irish political system is the provision of a proper Healthcare system for the Irish people. Irish taxpayers are paying for a world class Healthcare system and Minister Mary Harney is working both hard and smart to make sure they get one.
It is a huge challenge; indeed it is the largest change management exercise in the history of the State. I know of no other politician who would have either the courage to accept the task, let alone to deliberately seek it out, or the skill to bring it to a successful conclusion.
Progress is being made, slowly and painfully perhaps, but real progress nonetheless. The Tanaiste is a woman of acute intelligence, great political skill, and no little compassion. All attributes she will need to deliver the promise of a world class Health Service. I have no doubt she will do so.
On one point only do I agree with Mr Molloy, the fate of the Progressive Democrats (and indeed of every politician in Dail Eireann ) lies in the hands of God and the Irish people. To God I commend our souls and the souls of all in politics, to the Irish people I commend the Progressive Democrats.
SEAMUS MULCONRY,
DIRECTOR OF POLICY
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS,
STH FREDERICK ST D2

My response emailed Sunday 13th August

Dear Sir,

I refer to Seamus Mulconry‘s response (10th August) on behalf of the PDs to my earlier analysis (4th August) of the party’s situation. I doubt your readers required his help in understanding the meaning of “gombeen politics”. They only have to think “Parlon Country” to conjure up an appropriate image of self-serving cute-hoorism. It’s not a question of intelligence or competence, it’s a question of how those attributes are applied.

Mr Mulconry offers a robust defence of Michael McDowell, a man of undoubted ability and intelligence. However, the minister’s outburst against Richard Bruton was only the latest in a series of gaffes which place serious question-marks over his political judgement. Other include the highly controversial provision of confidential garda information on the Columbia Three case to a selected journalist and a series of high-profile policy u-turns forced on him by his government colleagues, most recently the decision to legalise gambling clubs.

Finally, Mr Mulconry has the brass-neck to accuse me of having “the absolute temerity to question the Tanaiste's competence” as, in my letter of 4th August, I stated that “few people doubt her integrity or work ethic, but her competence is now being called into question by her apparent inability to achieve significant improvement in the health service or to break the hold of the powerful vested interests - the consultants, nurses etc - in that service.”

If Mr Mulconry thinks that the public and the media are already declaring the Tanaiste's tenure a success in the Health arena, then I suspect that he needs to do more research in his role as PD Director of Policy.

Regards etc.

How is it in your ideal world?

Our daily lives are highly complex affairs, though we rarely recognise that fact.

We interact with a myriad of people - family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and strangers. Some interactions are planned, many are unplanned. We have prepared responses and we are also required to make many off-the-cuff responses.

We make good decisions, imperfect decisions and outright mistakes.

The good decisions may often involve the telling of lies, the use of flattery, the biting of tongues, the deliberate avoidance of the perceived truth.

The sub-optimal decisions are generally, though not always, arrived at without malice. We misjudge other people’s motivation or needs. We’re in a hurry. We’re not interested. We’ve already made our mind up. We’re deliberately provoked. We lack or lose patience. We act on imperfect or incomplete information or knowledge. We react to what has been done or said by the other party, or pre-empting what we expect as their contribution/reaction, or seeking to settle an old score. We act on something we’ve been told by a third party, which proves to be incorrect.

Sometimes the problem arises because the other party misunderstands what we mean to express or our intent, for good or ill, and an unexpected and unpredicted scenario develops. They arrive at our interaction with their own set of possible inputs and outcomes, so it’s fraught with a double dose of potential for misunderstanding.

Our daily lives are filled with such situations. Depending on how they are evolving before our eyes we make a number of decisions. We change tack. We bite our tongue. We compromise. We attack. We retreat. We kiss and make up. We shut up. We listen. We learn. We apologise. We walk away. Whatever.

Our own lives are a microcosm of national and international politics, but thankfully most of us are only burdened with a fraction of the potential complexities.

Media commentators have lives that are equally complicated. Indeed, with wealth, fame and the circles they move in, they probably have ample opportunity to complicate their lives even more.

Yet put them in front of a microphone and the same media people allow no such ambiguities. They offer black and white analysis of some imaginary black and white world that simply doesn’t exist and has never existed - for us or for them. They demand yes/no answers. They not only want definitive answers and explanations to existing problems and situations, but they want answers to hypothetical future situations - “what will you do if….” etc.. Often these hypothetical scenarios have the potential to exacerbate an already overheated situation if the response is seen or heard by the opposing party to the dispute under discussion.

The media make it virtually impossible for politicians to do what we do every day in our own lives - change their mind, compromise etc.. And, God help us, most politicians seem to collude in this nonsense.

Whatever chance exists to resolve international disputes, I suspect that the role of the media is definitely a double-edged sword. How would any of us, or our relationships, survive if we were forced to endure the equivalent of scrutiny by 24-hour reality TV but with the added twist that we were also subjected to constant interrogation, often of a speculative nature? With everyone you know and don’t know watching.

It's time to call a halt!

King of the Pygmies

On Channel 4 News tonight, Sir Christopher Meyer was a contributor on the steps necessary to resolve the overall problem in the Middle East.

In response to one of the other contributors who made the point that both Hamas and Hizbollah are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, Meyer made reference to the lessons learnt in the Northern Ireland peace process and pointed out that the constitution of the Republic of Ireland laid claim to the territory of Northern Ireland.

That Meyer saw this as being relevant to the situation in the Middle East shows a shallowness of thinking that is breath-taking. The Republic of Ireland never made, or even threatened, any effort by force to put that territorial claim into effect. The contrast with both the words and the actions of Israel’s neighbours could hardly be greater.

When this man was UK ambassador in Washington, there were clearly more pygmies running about than those identified in his memoirs!

No heroes in Lebanon

Israel bombards Lebanon, attempting to avoid killing civilians but failing.

Hizbollah bombards Israel, attempting to kill civilians but failing.

A plague on both their houses.

Footnote: Published as a leter in the Irish Independent.