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Lobbyists don’t go to constituency clinics
Posted on March 14, 2010
I found the article published in the Irish Times yesterday by Professor Declan Kiberd to be part of a worrying trend in commentary about politics in our media recently. The Irish Times Article is part of a series of articles the Irish Times has said it will publish in over the next few weeks as part of a series ‘Renewing the Republic’. Readers of the article on line can make comments and I did yesterday and made some points that I will also make here. Professor Kiberd to a large degree blames the political system for our problems. He even blames the political system for the decision by the Government not to adopt ICTU’s 10 point plan. But it was not the political system that rejected the option of ICTU’s 10 point plan. The Government rejected it. It was a choice made by the Government that Labour might not have made, for example. It is very convenient for the Government and the IBECs and the CIF etc. to blame the political system for what are in fact choices of the parties in Government. Blaming the political system for particular political choices is to buy into some idea that there is no political differences. Contrary to the gist of Professor Kiberd’s article there are alternatives being put forward by the opposition to the Government's approach and thanks to our political system, the voters will have a chance to vote for or against those alternatives at the next election.
Lost without my mobile phone
Posted on March 12, 2010
I lost my mobile phone. I went to an event on Monday and either there, or on the way home, or at my home, I lost my mobile phone. I have searched my home. Contacted all the relevant places that it could have turned up. And no luck so far. I haven't looked to replace it just yet because I keep hoping it will turn up. I had turned the phone onto silent at the event I was at where I last remember having the phone because the phone rang in the middle of the main speech at the event. This meant that ringing the phone when it was lost would not draw attention to where the phone was. Now the battery has run out. For some reason I find it very hard to let that phone go and go and replace it. I quite literally feel lost without my phone. I feel attached to that particular phone even though I can get a pretty close replacement! Part of it is because of the texts I kept on the phone. I am one of these (strange) people that doesn't delete texts and on a previous one had ones from years back that every now and then the phone's memory filled up so I would have to go back and choose which text from someone to delete. Would it be that Christmas wish from 4 years ago I delete or this one? Texts that marked a milestone or from someone close or that said something funny or nice or cross! I even kept the phone after it was decomissioned, as such, because I couldn't transfer the texts over to my new phone. Going that far is probably just me but it goes to show how mobile phones have become like an extension of ourselves lately!
One who undertakes an endeavour
Posted on February 27, 2010
There is a lot of talk at the moment about the need for entrepreneurship to help get our economy growing again. I’ve just learned tonight from Wikipedia that entrepreneur is a French word that means “one who undertakes an endeavour”. I think this means we all are entrepreneurs in our own way. But that’s not the notion of an entrepreneur that is put across by many of those that call for the encouragement of entrepreneurship in Irish Society. I always get the impression that what is being called for are people who will start up a business to make money and as a result create jobs. There was a young man that seemed to be presented in this mould on the Pat Kenny show last week. He had made a million from setting up an I.T. company. The idea being put forward by the programme, I felt, was that this is the type of entrepreneur that should populate our economy and even our parliament. If the young man came up with some scientific or technological innovation that changed people’s lives, that achievement was not highlighted by Pat Kenny, or the young man himself. I do not know what the young man’s company created and I don’t want to judge him as such. Michael D. Higgins T.D. pointed out at an Oireachtas Committee during the week that ‘Frontline’ doesn’t allow for much more than black and white positions to be set out by the panellists and audience. But I felt the idea that was being put forward by the way he was introduced, and even in the way the young man spoke of himself, was that what we mean by entrepreneurs is people that make money and create jobs, and that is about the height of it. Kenny spoke about there not being enough business people in the Dail.
Enhancing the role we play as members of the Oireachtas
Posted on February 19, 2010
Have just discovered that the Oireachtas website allows users to the site to download clips from its video recordings of Dail and Seanad and Committee proceedings. This is how I have created the video clip for this post which is my speech on Labour's private members time last Wednesday when I spoke about my old hobby horse - the need to retain our present electoral system of pr stv in multi seat constituencies. Went a bit of topic but hey - have to take a bit of licence every now and then.
The long haul
Posted on February 09, 2010
What do I think about the resignation of George Lee from the Dail?
I think it is a pity. If he stuck around he could have made a good contribution. I felt he was making an impression and would have expected him to grow into the role of TD. I was very impressed when I was shown a leaflet from George about the budget that was handed to someone I know getting off the LUAS in his constituency on the evening of the Budget. I thought from this leaflet that he would give his Fine Gael constituency Dail colleagues a run for their money in terms of his work on the ground before the next election.
Almost a week in the life of a TD
Posted on January 29, 2010
I have got a couple of questionnaires recently asking me for the percentages of my time I spent on this that on the other. How much of my time do I spend visiting my constituency the latest one asked – I live there I wrote in big letters across page! It’s real guess work and I wonder about the scientific validity when all these questionnaires are collated. Some of the questions are straightforward, others you really are just making a stab at answering. Questions that ask me to put in order of preference who influences my voting decisions, my constituents, the country, the party – it depends! How many times a year, a month etc. do I meet with this type of group or that type of group. I suppose I am glad to be asked although those questionnaires are time consuming in themselves. Anyway, having been frustrated at the task of splitting up my work into imaginary percentages of time, I thought that I would for my blog tonight do an outline of how I a TD spent my week, this week, so far. Just for the record, in case of interest, and for when I write my memoirs.
All Politics is Local
Posted on January 14, 2010
Political decisions however high brow and noble they might seem ultimately matter because they affect people and people live their lives out locally. There is no real separation between national and local issues because they intertwine, overlap or arise from or give rise to. But we still get the debate about the need to stop us national politicians from talking about local issues.
Driving home this weather
Posted on January 07, 2010
It took me just under 6 hours to drive home from Leinster House this evening. I left at 4.30 and drove in my driveway at 9.50pm. It’s not the first time this has ever happened to me but I think that is the longest time driving home. You start out not minding too much, listening to the radio, singing along to upbeat songs. Then after about 2 hours and still in town you look at the other drivers around you and feel your common humanity and we are all in the same boat. People are ringing in radio stations to say where they are stuck and request a song and you smile at their predicament and the radio banter about it. But then when 4 hours have gone and you’re only just getting out of town the hunger sets in and the boredom and frustration. Many people had started a long walk home and but for the terrible cold that could have seemed a better option than driving to Lucan. My sister texted me at 8.55 to say she had just arrived at her home having left work at 3. I spent some stationary time in mobile phone correspondence with a voter about the state of the country and the politics that has got us here.
Happy Christmas 2009
Posted on December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Will be back after Santa has been and all the turkey is eaten.
Budget was missed opportunity for fairness
Posted on December 10, 2009
Budget 2010 was an opportunity for the Government to make amends and start to rebuild a fairer and more sustainable economy. Too many tax breaks for the wealthy and developers and too little regulation of the financial speculators were root causes of our country’s economic collapse. There was a need for a fair budget with the central focus not just on cuts and pleasing international markets, but rather on job creation and the achievement of income equality. Instead the Government chose to introduce a budget that has divided Irish people. The Government budget has unfairly targeted some groups in our society including those on social welfare, families with children and public servants. Meanwhile many of the wealthiest in our society have managed to come out of this budget virtually unscathed.
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