Archive for March 2010
What can we retrieve from all of this?
Posted on April 01, 2010
It is hard to imagine what the impact on the lives of Irish people collectively and individually will be from the billions due to be given to the banks to purchase their loans and to recapitalise them. How will it play out? Will it work and save our banking system? How much money will be left to run our country? What will it mean for younger people and children in terms of the lifestyles and opportunities they will have? What can we retrieve from all of this? It feels a bit like we will have to start from scratch and build a very different type of economy and society to the one we have had up until now. We can't go back to what we had before. Even if we wanted to try we shouldn't because it is an economic model that has failed us. Labour must articulate an alternative economic model,and we must go out and persuade people of the merits of democratic socialism as a way to organise our economy and society. We must promote the public realm for our common good and the redistribution of what wealth we create for the benefit of all of us. Countries that have had such a model, even if only in part, are faring better than Ireland in face of economic downturn. They have a better quality of life that all of their citizens reap the benefit of, and none have what we have to face in terms of the extent of our national wealth that will now have to be used to bail out our banks.
Excellent letter in today's Irish Times
Posted on March 26, 2010
No it's not from me, and if only I could have thought of the sentiments in this letter when I wrote in my blogs and in online comments and letters to the editor (unpublished) to argue against the election of TDs by list systems. This letter published in today's Irish Times from Edward Thornley is an excellent response to those that think that we should move away from voting for named persons on a ballot paper. I copy the letter below.
"Voting for people, not robots
Madam, – Dr Garret FitzGerald’s articles are usually valuable contributions to public knowledge and debate; occasionally, however, as in his article on so-called electoral “reform” (Opinion, March 20th), he rides a hobby-horse.
Keeping Ahead of the Head Shop phenomenon
Posted on March 20, 2010
I was shown a poster this week of a Head Shop that is opening up in my constituency and a constituent informed me that they got a leaflet in the door that advertised for a head shop that would do home deliveries. As a result I have raised the issue of Head Shops a couple of times in parliamentary questions in the Dail. The most recent reply is interesting. Plans are afoot to ban some of the substances that Head Shops sell but the regulations to ban those substances must first be notified to the European Commission under the European Technical Standards Directives and there is a 3 month period after notification during which the regulations are stalled from taking effect. The EU law that applies is the same one I pointed out would have applied if Ireland had jumped ahead of the EU in banning light bulbs. This time delay on the bringing in of regulations banning particular substances means that head shops can sell these products in the meantime. When the substances are made illegal what new products will take their place on the shelves of these shops? Could some of these substances be dangerous? The statement in the Minister’s reply that "Some of these substances are used in industrial activities and the application of controls under the Misuse of Drugs Act will involve a restriction on trade in their legitimate use" would make you wonder about the wisdom of them being used for personal use.
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!
