Why Gaybo is right about drugs

// February 26th, 2007 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Gay Byrne’s recent comments about whether we should consider legalising drugs is a interesting contribution to debate that for too long has been stagnant and seems to involve too many people who have a vested interest in the current situation continuing rather than it ending.

Looking at the facts of the premise that he starts from that the “War on drugs” as fought for the last 40/50 years has failed is absolutely correct. Drug consumption has increased and it spans all social and economic classes. We are expending every increasing resources on trying to stop the supply and we devote far more of our resources toward tackling supply compared to demand.

And despite the fact that drugs do affect everyone, it is still the case that the vast majority of those most directly impacted by drugs are those from the most disadvantaged communities, those with the lowest school leaving standard of education and the highest rates of unemployment. Day in, day out, children in these areas are giving a demonstration of the vast monies to be made from breaking the law as they see dealers in the neighbourhoods.

Of every time someone uses drugs they are taking a risk. There again every time you cross the street you are taking a risk, we build pedestrian crossing and education people to know the risks. We do not ban crossing the road.

Of course, Ireland or indeed any number of EU countries acting in concert could not and should not take an unilateral steps to legalise drugs while sharing common travels zones with countries that have not and would not make such a change. However, if there was a joint decision to be made what might that approach look like. I would suggest that it would be very different to that outlined by Patrick Kenny in the Irish Examiner today March 1st

Show or Substance – Noel Whelan

// February 26th, 2007 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I picked up Noel Whelan’s Show or Substance over the weekend. It was more for research than anything else as I’m not completely at ease with being armed with the tools to assess the various party’s take on the issues from someone who was so recently a FF candidate and is obviously still very much an advisor to them.

It is hard to tell if he is meant to collecting together the policy positions of all the parties and comparing them especially when no policy for either the PDs or FF is posted separately. Of course, this is natural enough since both are in government they do not have separate policies at this point. Instead, we get the policies of the parties compared to the government’s take on things. And there is no real highlighting of inconsistencies, perhaps I was hoping for some better presentation beyond the novel style text, even some bulletin points making it easier for Seamus Public to compare what is said would help.

I’m not finished but I would for the moment note there are a number of factual errors such as the glaring one given the Whelan’s professed expertise is the coverage of elections that SF won a council seat in Limerick East in 2004. SF didn’t win any city or council seats in Limerick in 2004.

What’s a Binge these days?

// February 25th, 2007 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I must admit that I have a problem with the alteration in the media mindset of what is a night on the tiles. According to the medical profession a binge is 4 pints or more in a evening. I’m not sure when the medical profession were called in to define a binge but while 4 pints or more may breach some medical barrier it is far from what most people would have viewed as a binge.

I’m not even clear why someone would bother to leave the car at home, get a taxi into somewhere to consume 3 pints over the course of 3/4 hours and then a taxi home. You’re spending way more than 50% of your night’s out money purely on transportation!

Also, I heard someone from the vintners association on the radio, Newstalk this morning talking about “the billions that is spent on urban transport” and who the rural sector is missing out. It might stun the guy from the vintners but there is far from billions being spent on the running of Dublin Bus or the LUAS and more significantly those services take in a lot of money to get as close as possible to covering their costs. Bus Eireann on the other hand has the bulk of unprofitable rural routes where the bus takes 4/5 pensioners into town for their shopping during the day. No harm in my view but we need some realism about the extent to which those living in an urban setting are already subsiding those living in rural areas.

I’m favourably disposed to doing something to prevent rural decline but falsely claiming that “Billions” are spent running some utopian urban public transport network that patently does not exist is not the way to go about getting people on your side.

After Motorola, is Dell next?

// February 25th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Uncategorized

The return of Michael Dell to the helm of the company he founded would seem to herald a renewed focus on lower costs with the target of regaining their position as the No.1 PC company in the world. And what does this mean for Ireland and Limerick in particular?

Despite the protestations that Dell’s new plant in Lodz, Poland is for solely for extra capacity and to service new markets it is hard to avoid the nagging suspicion that the intent is to replicate the efficiency of the Limerick plant in a much lower cost environment. A considerable number of the Dell employees in Limerick at present are Polish and this would create a ready made supervisor structure for the Lodz plant should they decide to relocate. It is possible and indeed likely in the event of any relocation that Dell would aim to retain their network research centre which is quite recent and also retain some of the Limerick facilty as a distribution hub for the UK and Ireland. This would still mean job losses running at over a 1,000. Such a event would represent a major indictment of the government’s efforts to address competitive costs in the Irish economy and the fact that the lack of competitive pressures has allowed some players in particular sectors to exploit the sweat of others to excess.

Ireland’s competitiveness has been eroded over the last 5 years as costs have increased in large part driven by sectors that not, from solicitors to hair dressers, estate agents to restaurants these are the main private sector drivers of increased costs. Yet the state itself stands indited of increasing costs of doing business.

It is hard to avoid a believe that someo commentators can’t read beyond the press releases they are given whether by the state or the private sector. When the national broadcaster RTe can’t tell the difference between high salaried development jobs being lost at Motorola and new call centre jobs at VMWare you have to question their basic knowledge of the tech sector. The jobs lost at Motorola are those of people with 10/20 years software development experience and somehow RTe are happy to be spun with the notion that call centre/tech support jobs are an adequate replacement.

As someone who comes from a tech background, I’ve a degree in electronic engineering and a general interest in construction and any aspect of making things, I’ve always found the lack of awareness when it comes to the technical world that we have to suffer from out friends in the fourth estate worrying.

If someone like Dell were to pull out or begin a process of withdrawal from their manufacturing from Ireland to somewhere like Lodz then I believe it will spell the death knell of Celtic Tiger 1.0. Do we have time or a government with the ability to get CT 2.0 out the door in time to safe our long term growth?

The Labour Civil Union bill and Colm O’Gorman’s leader’s reaction

// February 22nd, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

I was struck when listening to the radio on last Tuesday night by the vehemence of Minister McDowell’s response to the opposition during the debate about the Labour civil union Bill.

It then occurred to me that it must be even more strange for Colm O’Gorman, someone for whom the notion of civil unions in Ireland is of more than academic interest, that the party he is now a member of and a candidate for was playing politics with this issue.

What exactly is so defective about the Labour Bill? Indeed, what was so terrible about the Labour Bill that meant that he as minister for Justice wasn’t proposing amendments and then passing it into law with a view to revising it later. Instead he has long fingered the proposal for a number of years at least.

Perhaps the truth lies more in the fact that the PDs may be dependent on the transfers of FF candidates in a number of constituencies and irrespective of the PD’s own position it is important not to spook the FFers.

The so called progressive Arab world and U.L.

// February 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I was looking for some news on blogs and came across this awful story. And to think this is one of the so called progressive Arab nations that the US is so keen to promote.

And to think my own alma mater is allegedly “after me” for this lidal, biddy veedayooh. I guess I can hope to avoid a spell in cokey.

Mention in ‘da paper’

// February 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Seanad, seanad eireann, seanad reform

My nomination got a mention in the paper or should I say da paper today. One minor inaccuracy I’m a UL graduate and as such not an NUI graduate, won’t want people to think I was try to deliberately mislead anyone.

NUI Update on the register

// February 19th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Seanad, seanad eireann, seanad reform

I was talking with someone from the NUI recently and it appears there may be something of a quandary over the registers of the two university panels.

There is a new register available every June 1st. The register to be used for an election is meant to be the one in effect when the Dail is dissolved. For this upcoming election it is widely believe that the Dail will be dissolved mid April. Meaning the new 2007 register would not be used, reverting to using the existing 2006 register. This means that recent graduates will not be included on the register.

However, when a similar situation arose in 2002 the NUI used the new register which they had compiled even though it had not yet come into effect. In the same election TCD on contrast used its previous register.

This time out the pressure is on TCD to use a new register as in the preparation of the 2006/07 register they misled 700 voters who had properly set in their registration forms

The boxes that the votes were in were overlooked/lost/misplaced. Senator Norris of TCD has raised a stink – rightly so in my view. It now seems that the best way for TCD to get out of their problem is to use their new register which should include these 700 names along with any other new folks. Unless they perchance mislay some of them too! However, that in turn means that the NUI is highly likely to also use a new register. So what you might say? Well, one thing is that candidates need the register in order to campaign .And given that the resources the NUI and TCD allocate to the task of updating their registers typically have from end of Feb to beginning of June to complete their task, slightly more than 3 months but this year they may need to issue the register earlier perhaps 6 weeks earlier in 50% of the time they would normally have. With it would appear at this time no extra resources allocated. And also no actual deadline to work against since they don’t know when the Dail will be dissolved.

Either a decision should be made to use the existing register unless the Dail is dissolved after June 1st or more resources need to dedicated to updating the register to ensure that the work can be completed in time.

NUI

// February 18th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Seanad, seanad eireann, seanad reform

Last autumn, I declared my intention to contest the NUI Seanad panel. Since then I’ve been hugely encouraged by the support I’ve received from people across the country and beyond. I am contesting this election for the 23rd Seanad as an candidate for the NUI Constituency. Feel free to read some biographical information

While the main reason for deciding to contest these elections is that as a UL graduate I, like many others, not allowed to vote in the Seanad elections, that isn’t my only concern. I am seeking to draw attention to a number of other issues. Amongst them

A reversal of the imposition of residential charges on disabled adults.

A commitment to resourcing research and facilitating lifelong learning.

Broader Seanad Reform to allow all Irish citizens a vote.

Reforms to ensure consistency in sentencing and the delivery of real justice.

I’m running as an independent but doesn’t mean that I’m indifferent to the government. I’ll be straight with you, if you genuinely believe that the last ten years of government have been remotely close to the best we, as a nation, could have aimed for then I’m probably not the guy for you. We’ve had governments that have contented themselves with not rocking the boat, cabinets of mediocrity and a Taoiseach more in the mould of middle management than leadership.

I believe that we have more in our grasp that we imagine. And if we were to lift our eyes above, that we could achieve much much more.

I know that much of my views will sound like they were lifted from the script of the West Wing but would that be so bad?

McDowell sells own grandmother for votes

// February 14th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized

I can’t help wondering if the dangling of an offer of €300 per week for pensioners might not come to be seen as the PD’s Eircom and taxis moment of election 2007.

It has been just…sort of..thrown out there with no context for the increase. I initially thought it was rushed in response to the Labour tax cuts but then it is the frontpage of the PD freebie in yesterday’s Indo. Why €100? Why not €123 or €94? Perhaps Michael likes nice round numbers, or he’s scared of the number 23, maybe he thinks the public are too thick to work out that this money is going to be at the expense of something else.

Naturally, McDowell is not so much selling his own granny but trying to buy ours (or in my case my mother). Yet even my mother at the time of the last election when they gave the Gold medical cards to every pensioner over 70 was complaining that “sure many of those over 70 didn’t need the cards as they had plenty of money to pay for visits to the doctor” and pointed out that it should have been the kids who got medical cover as a matter of course because that is when it is needed. After all, she had been a parent and had some experience of when parents help with their children’s health. Most older people have been parents too.

Indeed, I suspect many grandparents in and around Dublin in particular will look at the state of the schools their grandkids are going to, the distance that their children have to travel to find a childcare place because they aren’t able to live anywhere close to them.

Also, what does it say about a government that is desperately trying to get young people to take out personal pension cover when the state is stepping in and giving a massive boost to the pensions of those who didn’t make such a provision. It is hardly setting a good example now is it? There are so many conflicts between this proposal and other areas of government policy it seems hard to understand it in any context except that of an election.

If the government made some effort to reduce heating and energy prices for the elderly, ensured that we had mixed communities so they weren’t left alone to fend for themselves, and that their families could live reasonably close to each other such that grandparents could see their children and grandchildren that would do much more than a €100 per week.

Comfort and company is what most older people need and lack. A €100 bribe per week isn’t going to provide either.