JLC’s, EROs, REAs and ELO

// May 30th, 2011 // No Comments » // GE11

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The controversy over the report conducted by Kevin Duffy, and Dr Frank Walsh of CUD and which was published by the government into the operation of JLCs and ERO has the mild whiff of a whipped up storm. Just for whose consumption would be an interesting question to ask. The report that has been published was originally commissioned by Mary Hanifin in the dying days of the last government.

Most of those commenting won’t have read the document, I’ve barely skimmed it myself. What is very much noteworthy for the fact that it is uncommented on is what hasn’t been suggested, is that there is no suggestion of abandoning the JLCs, or of reducing the standard hourly rates paid to people, either in the report or from the minister. Instead there is some mention of looking at other means of compensating people for working awkward hours and weekend work. So how did all this outrage burst into life without a single attributable sentence to hang it all on?

The reaction appears to say “How dare someone say that they want to see discussion on something without excluding all but the most uncontentious items”, and worse yet that there might be some expectation that such discussions to take place within a relatively short time frame. Imagine that, a minister puts forward proposals for consideration and discussion before then intending to bring the matter back for refinement before taking it to cabinet for their collective decision. What kind of autocracy is this?

(more…)

A minor but significant polling point to consider.

// February 26th, 2011 // No Comments » // GE11

So with the RTE exit poll published of FG 36.1 Lab 20.5%, FF 15.1, SF, 10.1%, Greens 2.7% Others 15.5.

There is a minor change in the party order that could be significant in terms of seats never before has the greatest party been so far ahead but also as transfer receptive to one of the other two big vote getters. FF traditionally got 40% or thereabouts but FG were there between them and Labour to soak up transfers. This time FF are behind Labour but unlikely to transfer in sufficient numbers for Labour candidates to catch FG candidates while Labour are also transferring to FG where the contest is being FG and FF. So don’t be surprised if the 36% instead of giving the mid to low 70s that some are predicting starts to creep back up closer to 80 seats by tomorrow morning.

Some last minute predictions

// February 26th, 2011 // No Comments » // GE11

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It is just possible that FG might get 3 seats in Cork South West and Limerick County (if Collins FF is under 19% this is very doable), and we could see 3 FGers in Laois Offaly.

My prediction from two nights before polling still stands of, for what it is worth,

FG38%/FF20%/Lab17%/SF10%/Grn1.8%/ULA3.2%/Ind10%

I suspect transfers from FG to Labour will be down somewhat on the usual level, I’ve met loads of Fine Gael voters who are seriously ticked off over the Labour tactics in the last 2 weeks. Fine Gael the party of the Just Society, which actually made the case to middle Ireland for the introduction of divorce on two occasions, that changed the public mindset about divorce and which frankly ensured that Irelanfd in the 80s with twice the unemployment rate of the UK had nothing like the social problems or unrest like Toxteth or Brixton is being painted as an entirely neo-Thatcherite party by. Sure there are right wingers in FG just there are pseudo or near unreconstructed communists in Labour but to characterise FG as being solely that sort of party is inaccurate and frankly gets up the backs of older FGers. My parents who would normally vote Labour immediately after FG almost by instinct were very…well, hurt is the only word I can think of… by the behaviour of Labour and its leadership over the last while and had my dad’s vote not already been in the post he would most probably have changed it. As it was I left my mother mulling over voting for an left leaning independent instead of the Labour candidate. Will this cost Labour some gains?

The lunacy of an agreed FG/Lab program for government

// February 2nd, 2011 // 2 Comments » // 2011, GE11

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It has come up repeatedly in press commentary over the last few weeks and was a feature  again last night on Vincent Browne that FG and Labour should published an agreed program for government before the election takes place. We know that Vincent isn’t the greatest with numbers so I’ll be really slow with this.

If FG get 60 seats and Labour 30 then that’s a 2:1 ratio or if FG and Labour both got 50 seats then that’s a 1:1 ratio or a 50/50 split.

The ratio of the parties would affect and reflect more than the simple make up of the cabinet. It would reflect the level of public support that each party’s manifesto had gotten and thus the legitimate negotiating strength for each position. That is why for the parties to negotiate now in advance of the people giving their verdict on the proposals of each party would be sure lunacy, as it presupposes or rather completely ignores what the opinion of the public would be. The election isn’t just about who is Taoiseach or how many bums each party gets to seat around the cabinet table, but it is about whose ideas the public favour more.

Major Irish Political party unveils new details about party policy

// January 25th, 2011 // No Comments » // 2011, GE11

The Party has in response to much media comment about their lack of detail unveiled new details about it’s new Transport policy.

The party has revealed that the policy when released will be Mauve coloured with a covering exclusively provided by Moleskine, lightly scented with a hint of  lilac and the reliving of a child’s summer in Tuscany evoking memories of open top cars and sunlight dancing on upturned faces as the wind fingers at pace through their hair. The text will be bold in places but otherwise well behaved and quite plain. In adherence to the party’s commitment to diversity the text will range in size from 40 pt to 2 pt*. Fonts to be used are not 100% written in stone, but Calibri, Arial and Times New Roman will feature prominently.

The party can confirm that there will be no paragraphs of a length more than 4 sentences and with excessive usage of bullet points throughout. Several pages will consist of nothing but images of the party leader and party members pretending to be ordinary members of the public. As this is a transport policy there will be further pages devoted to images of trains, buses and cars with some bridges and roads featured too.

The policy has been described as very forward looking by those who have read it (including family members of those who wrote it and who had to be heavily prompted in their responses when doing so) with a sense of the determination of Central American strong man in its follow through.

Pressed by reporters as to the content of the policy document the party said that its contents would be profound and far reaching and affecting every aspect of transport experience. There will be extensive recourse to references to studies of similar sounding but unrelated academic studies of mice travelling on buses.

Asked what the policy would do the answer was that the policy would be transformational and make the lives of everyone it touched better. At this point the gathered media proceeded to tear their eyebrows off. All in all it was deemed the most successful policy launch that day by any party.

* (a footnote at the base of the last page indicating that all commitments are subject to the prevailing economic climate being favourable to the showering of gold coins on the populous)

Decent, honest and honourable – it isn’t enough.

// January 14th, 2011 // 5 Comments » // 2011

In recent days I’ve read on p.ie and elsewhere and heard on the airwaves about people who are decent, honest and honourable and for this set of reasons should be public representatives or hold high office.

One of the most impressive moments of the 2008 for me wasn’t any part of the razzamatazz but I guess surprisingly a contribution from Sen. Joe Biden in the Vice Presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin. Yeah, I’m that much of an anorak I watched it and even paid attention to what was said.

It’s about 2 minutes 45 seconds  into this clip of the later stages of the debate* in which the nominees were asked about bi-partisan ship. It highlighted for me a problem with modern politics in general and with an interesting Irish quirk to it. The problem is that too often people on the left and the right tend to question the motivation of their opponents. To listen to members of the left you’d swear that those on the right were oppose to people having good paying jobs and good schools and access to decent health care. And you’d swear blind after listening to some of the right that those on the left were planning to lock us all up for thinking a thought that diverged from the acceptable norm or buying for extra lessons for our kids after school.

The real focus in political shouldn’t be arguments over the motives we imagine for ourselves that others must have but their judgement and the substance of their argument that they make for the policy position they are supporting. It’s part of the key difference between those who are politics for personal ambition and advancement and those of us who want to see changes in matters of policy and substance.

The Irish quirk is that we have become so used to the widespread myth that all politicians are inherently dishonest, indecent and dishonourable that the mere fact someone comes forward who it is suggested is decent, honest and honourable even if they are from the same party as the incumbent that this is is a sufficient reason to vote for them. To give them a go this time. It’s not!

Instead, those traits and others like them should be a necessary** condition but not a sufficient one for voting for someone. We should be able as adults to presume unless it is shown otherwise that all those who put themselves forward for election are decent, honest and honourable. Those who crow loudest about being decent, honest and honourable are implying that all others in the field aren’t. And the same goes for the I’m local, I’m ordinary, I’m just one of you, schtick we often hear from candidates.

I don’t think Brian Cowen or Brian Lenihan or the rest of the members of the government are somehow inherently dishonest, indecent or dishonourable. I do think they is balls out wrong with the approach they’ve adopted with dealing with the various problems we’ve been faced with and they were plain wrong in how they dealt with the economy prior to the crisis which in turn made a bad situation into an awful one. Like kids that played with matches and burned and badly damaged the family home, it’s not that they did it out of shear badness but rather out of lack of cop-on.

*The full text is below but it reads much more dryly than it come across on tv at the time.

Sen. Biden “I have been able to work across the aisle on some of the most controversial issues and change my party’s mind, as well as Republicans’, because I learned a lesson from Mike Mansfield.

Mike Mansfield, a former leader of the Senate, said to me one day — he — I made a criticism of Jesse Helms. He said, “What would you do if I told you Jesse Helms and Dot Helms had adopted a child who had braces and was in real need?” I said, “I’d feel like a jerk.”

He said, “Joe, understand one thing. Everyone’s sent here for a reason, because there’s something in them that their folks like. Don’t question their motive.”

I have never since that moment in my first year questioned the motive of another member of the Congress or Senate with whom I’ve disagreed. I’ve questioned their judgment.

I think that’s why I have the respect I have and have been able to work as well as I’ve been able to have worked in the United States Senate. That’s the fundamental change Barack Obama and I will be bring to this party, not questioning other people’s motives.”

** I’m channelling my inner engineer with recourse to a standard maths phrase of a condition “being necessary but not sufficient”. In other words, it’s presence doesn’t prove a thing but it’s absence does disprove something.

The general election of 2014

// January 14th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // 2011

It is the height of arrogant presumption of someone to take the result of the next election as read but it is also prudent that someone within an political party need to think beyond the next election towards the next generation. And it should be recognised that there are times when a party’s day in the sun has passed, when it is ripe for toppling from the political mainstream and all it requires is the right push at the right time. This is what happened to the UK’s Liberal party in the 1920s where the Tories adroitly usher them out and the Labour in as their main opposition. Such a prospect was unimaginable at the end of the first World War that at the beginning of the next war that the Liberal party would be a rump in parliament not to return to government until the dawn of a new century.

I’ve previously noted that a problem exists for FF is that who within the party at a point of central control will have the stature or influence to make the hard calls especially on supporting candidates for the future that will save the party from slow oblivion. Let’s face it, it’s not going to be the likes of  Jerry Beades that does it. The same question for different reasons has to be asked within FG as to who is thinking both in terms of longer term political goals (policy objectives) and strategy to ensure that FG will be able to play a dominant part in the political discussion of the coming decades.

Here are two (perhaps extreme) suggestions I would make (based on conversations I’ve had with others), one is that after the general election and once the new Taoiseach has been chosen by the Dail that the new government should immediately amend the necessary legislation and extend the Dail term to 7 years subject to its re-approval by the Oireachtas again 4 years hence (those not tying the Labour party into a deal for 7 years where they are dependent on the FG Taoiseach’s calling of the general election that they can’t revoke, and with the commitment that the full 7 years will not availed of. This is in part to signal that the work of national recovery will be hard and politically costly but that it will work in the medium term and the government needs the space for. It is an odd feature of public policy that good and effective policy takes much longer to show results than the political system generally allows, so that governments are frequently rewarded or punished for the work of others.

FF and the rest of the opposition will be doubtlessly outraged at this move but the new government can simply reply that we are in extraordinary times (which the current government has repeatedly claimed) and that the new government needs and deserves the time to fix the problems caused by a decade and half of mistakes and missed opportunities. With what may be an overwhelming majority this change is the new government’s for the asking. Thus everyone will believe that the next election will be 4/5 years hence or perhaps longer if FG and Labour are agreeable.

But then the coup de grace on FF will be that the government should having stabilised the economic situation and with the economy growing once again, even if unemploment will still be high, hold the next general election on the same day as the local and European elections of 2014 seeking a new mandate and with the commitment to revoke the 7 year term provision. FF will simply be unable to field enough new competent or credible candidates. It will be that much hard for new FF candidates to emerge who can run for both Dail and council at the same time. Couple this with the passage of Seanad reforms such that the Seanad is elected on the day as the Dail will also deprive FF of a route back to power.

FF will most likely return to the Dail with much the same 30/40 TDs they could have post 2011 and without the gains in new cllrs they wanted in order to rebuild the party at local level and in areas where they are weakest. So FF would be facing another full term in opposition along with the knowledge that they would most likely not be the dominant party in any government they might potentially be part of thereafter. This is likely to cause a crisis of confidence within what was once a self styled political movement and not a mere party, and was the natural path to power for the ambitious person of the political centre.

Then at some stage after this 2014 election, FG should think what it really wants in its outline for the 2nd program for government that would govern the 2nd half of that government period of 2017 and beyond. If Labour are unwilling to sign up to this program than the FG Taoiseach should make it clear that she is prepared to make the same offer to what remains of the FF parliamentary party. And at that point, our little tale of the future must end…

Why not have a FG Lab budget before the election?

// November 24th, 2010 // No Comments » // 2010

Why is the government persisting with this idea that it has to be their budget or nothing? Why don’t FF and the Greens announce they are delaying the vote on the Budget by 2 weeks, allow FG and Labour free access to the full figures that the department of Finance are working with, and let FG and Labour  introduce a slimmed down budget that they can agree on, and FF and the Greens simply  abstain on this budget vote. If the government has a majority as they keep saying they do then they should introduce their own budget and live or die by it. This notion, being peddled by the media in particular some RTe presenters, that FG or Labour should support measures that they had no hand, act or in deciding on in a like it or lump vote is a joke. We never saw the great mass of the media, in RTe or elsewhere, suggesting in 1987 or 1982 that FF must vote for the FG/Labour budgets or else.

We would get a budget that was in the national interest and didn’t have all sorts of ridiculous commitments that neither FG nor Labour could live with for the next 5 years. And tell the ECB if they want to save the Euro then the major European banks that lent to Irish banks need to realise their losses on their loans ASAP.

The next election is too good to waste

// November 22nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // 2010

I’m going to take issue with Jason’s reasons for his view that the next election is too good to waste on Fine Gael but then I’m going to end up agreeing with him for quite different reasons.

Jason has a lot to say in his post (read it, it’s good stuff as is usual) but I’m going to use as my jumping off point this particular paragraph.

“I’m sorry, but this is not good enough. We can’t have the most important election in the history of the state since 1948, an election that is a pivotal turn in our national story, and end up electing a crowd of guys who were Fianna Fail and would still be if Dev had had any bottle and said “You know Mick, you’re right. We can do something with this treaty.” We can’t hand over the country to fellas who have only ever excelled at losing. We can’t put in power people that all of us who aren’t in the Cult of Fine Gael know would have done little different in the last ten years.”

Let’s be honest here, even Fianna Fail aren’t the same as Fianna Fail in 1922 and nor were or are Fine Gael. Hell, even FF in 1927 were not the FF of 1937. The FG party that emerged in the early 30s was much changed from the people who formed the first government and who founded CnG as an afterthought when it came to fighting the election after the treaty. They were tempered by having to run a country while it was in motion, and made some stuff up on the hoff. FF were defined by their opposition to what CnG did, not be some principles other than the difference over the Treaty. For example, if CnG had engaged in a policy of larger scale land redistribution then FF would now be the party of the big farmer not FG.

So the idea that FG and FF must be one in the same cos at the time prior to the treaty negotiations they were all in the one political grouping is rather ridiculous. It’s matched only as a myth of the state’s origin as the one so ably but incorrectly presented in “The Wind that shake the barley” that all the lads of 1916 and the war of independence were in the main all lefties looking for the coming of the great socialist republic, they weren’t. They were mostly interested in national self determination with vague ideas after that of what form it would take, some were avowedly left leaning but not most of them. That both of the main parties that grew out of their efforts ended up being quite anti-left shows that there never was this ground swell for the left at the time the state was founded. The real reason FF and FG don’t differ radically in their aims is down to the inherent conservativism and paternalistic view of politics that much of the Irish electorate have. That’s the real problem. Paraphrasing from US policies, it’s the parent problem not the mammy problem. Too large a portion of the Irish electorate want the government to be their parent not their partner or support in getting on with their lives.

Moving on I had to agree that had FG and Labour/DL formed the government over the last 13 years that they “would have done little different in the last ten years.” but here the rub they needn’t actually have done radically different things in order to have a radically different outcome. As any student of speculative counter factuals will tell ya a very minor change have lead to very different outcomes. We didn’t need radically different policies in order to arrive at a radically different outcome.

Imagine for a moment that FG and Lab/DL had managed to win enough seats to govern as a minority administration and then a maj0rity just as FF did from ’97 to ’07. We’d have a number of key differences that I’m listing below

• Considerably fewer tax breaks for development resulting less development overall and less dependency on the construction industry for taxes and employment – that probably means a higher level of unemployment but also
• a lower level of immigration as there were fewer opportunities for unskilled migrants.
• a higher rate of social housing being built (this is a government with Labour in it) and most likely more concentration in medium density developments in the large population centres – that means less ghost estates in the midlands.
• less cuts in income taxes over all
• the cuts in capitial gains tax would have been less leaving the tax base wider than now
• changes in the funding model for the health service with the principle of money following the patients – what would that mean? An end to the 2nd tier system almost overnight. Why? Because at the moment a public consultant gets paid the same money week in week out whether they see 10 patients or 30 patients but they get paid each time they see a private patient meaning there is an incentive to see private patients that there isn’t for public patients. Remove that and the two tier system ceases to exist.
• I doubt that the runaway public procurement process with considerable cost overruns would have been as bad as it was under FF.
• I do think that the public pay bill might actually have been worse as I can imagine Labour would have tended to hire people left right and centre. That said I suspect that at least some elements in FG would have sought to ensure that benchmarking lead to some reforms in the public service, in particular they would have been aided in this by the pressure from the PDs in opposition that bench marking must deliver results. So we would have a larger public service but with more reforms in place than we have now. And with the reforms a greater ability to change more quickly.
• A lower initial minimum wage, cos Labour while wanting a high one would have been more conscious of the attacks it would bring the government under and which might have undermined the principle that they would have felt was more important than the rate itself plus or minus 50c.
• The lax mentality and culture around regulation and enforcement that Seanie Fitz and Fingers were aware of and took advantage of simply wouldn’t have existed, they would have to have been more cautious and less devil may care in their actions. In that instance, the loans Anglo and Nationwide would have made to developers would have been considerably less than they were, if they were less then their profits would have been less and the pressure on AIB and Bank of Ireland to follow would have been less to. We would still have most likely faced a property downturn eventually and even a decent sized bubble but it would be smaller one than the one we face and I think bailout of Anglo might have been closer to the order of 10billion (of course that’s pure guess work on my part) and the losses at AIB and Bank Of Ireland might have been manageable in the course of normal business so they weren’t chasing the Anglo way of doing business.
• SSIA’s would probably never have happened
• The National Pension Reserve Fund would exist and would be considerably bigger than it is now.
• There is the potential that a trade off of further reductions in income tax for a local tax might have occurred but I’m realistic enough to see that given the chance to avoid it no Irish government is going to bring in new taxes. That goes for property taxes and water charges too. Sad but true.
• We might have seen what they do on occasion in the US, tax refunds from the surpluses rather than permanent tax cuts.

I do tend to the view that given the situation we’re now in that we do need to make radical changes across almost all areas of public life but I also believe that relatively minor changes over the last 13 years might have spared us much of the current scale of the problems we face and obviated the need for that radical change. That might not have been in the long run by the best thing for the country. As the saying goes never waste a good crisis.

I agree with the point that voting for Fine Gael because they’re the largest opposition party at the moment and that some people view it as being the party’s turn is simply not good enough. If that’s what you think then don’t vote for Fine Gael. Vote for Fine Gael because the candidate(s) standing for election has made a case for what Fine Gael would do in government after the election and what their personal aims and principles are. And if the candidate fails to make that case then don’t vote for them but don’t vote for anyone else either who fails that test. Don’t apply a test to Fine Gael that other parties get a free pass on. Voting for Labour because they’ve never had a real go is no more an argument than voting for FG because it’s their go now. It’s no one’s go. Being in government is too important for it to be someone’s go. And I agree that Fine Gael have excelled at not winning elections but they’ve also excelled at changing the country by changing the political weather.  It was people in Fine Gael that brought the entire political establishment and the public in the south including FF around to the idea that the north was something that we couldn’t just dig in our heels over but that we had to accept the principle that the consent of the people was needed and that we need to find some way to work with unionists. John Hume did the more dangerous running  on this and if anyone deserves the bulk of the credit it is him but if he was depending on FF to be listened to then nothing would have happened. It was Fine Gael that made the case long before the PDs arrived on the scene that we need to be fiscally responsible. People in Fine Gael who were of a progressive bent have worked to change attitudes on a great many problems in part because so much of the party (as was even more of the country) was conservative, people in FG choose to face that conservatism head on and change minds.

I think that Fine Gael have articulated over the last few years a reasonable set of policies in respect of the public finances and Irish life and has made efforts to address the problems associated with unemployment. I also think that some of those policies are inconsistent, some areas are lacking and I personally disagree with party policy in a number of areas in the short and longer term. Yet unless there is the ME party out there made up of clones of mine that subscribes only to policies that I agree with then I’m never going to find a party that I share 100% congruence with. And the difference between me and many others is that I’m prepared to continue to make the case within the party to try and change those positions where we disagree. It’s a long slog and very dispiriting at times but that’s how our system of democracy works, you achieve the change you believe in by convincing others to do so, slowly and life sappingly so. You don’t as has been true in the past achieve real change by saying one thing to get elected and then doing something else that you never said you were going to do.

Change won’t come about by backing a party who can’t say what they will do in detail, who can’t tell anyone how (the great unanswered question in Irish politics, where the announcement of targets is often mistaken by the media for a detailed plan) the change will be achieved and who aren’t able to be upfront about what needs to be done.

Further detail on the Gilmore’s school sale

// November 1st, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Uncategorized

I had a gander at the Galway planning enquiry site* and it would appear from what is there that the land in question had prior conditional planning permission reference no. 03222 granted for a 6 room school back in 2003 long before the actual sale took place. This is different to the more recent application of this year reference 10383 which involved an 8 room school. The 2003 applicant is listed as Ciaran Kitching (who appears to be the Parish Priest for Killimor), and the townload is listed Garrynastillagh as opposed in 2010 when it was the Board of Management Iomair National School, and in Killimor but the GIS places the two applications at the same site.

Which prompts the following questions in my mind, when was the advertising stage that Eamon Gilmore refers to actually done, was before that planning application in 2003 or before the sale in 2006? And who was the owner at the time of the first application, was it Gilmore’s wife or her parents? Was an agreement made in principle prior to 2003 but then revisited (and if so what was the price and why did it fail) before being sold  later on at a higher price? Was the sale stalled after planning was granted in order to obtain a higher price later?

The thing about someone else getting planning permission on your land before you sell to them is that if you back out of the sale, there then exists a precedent granting a development of that size and scale on the land. Hence, you could more easily apply for an equivalent sized development, say a two storey apartment development or offices. The granting of Planning permission raises the price of land. So if the first application caused the price to raise was that considered when making that application? It would seem odd for the applicant and hence the one forking over the cash to act in a manner that would cost them more money. There again it was the state/ taxpayer that appears to be on the hook for the purchase price so did anyone involved really care?

The political problem here is that if you’re the beneficiary of a type of behaviour that you then seek to make hay in your career out by criticising then you’re a hypocrite, pure and simple. That is Gilmore’s problem in a nutshell, he is criticising behaviour in the property boom that he and his own have benefited from. In other countries this would considered a major political problem and would demand a full and frank disclosure.

The other problem is whether Eamon Gilmore erred in not declaring this in his members interests, the interwebs were full of those commenting on Ivor Callely’s failures to declare property that was in his wife’s name. Fact is that to the best of my knowledge community property operates as regards what you should declare to SIPO.

* to use the site, you have to use Internet Explorer and also install the ActiveX autodesk plug-in to view the application details, maps etc.