Archive for April 2010
Save our 1916 heritage
Posted on April 28, 2010
I went with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment Heritage and Local Government yesterday to meet with James Connolly Heron, great grandson of James Connolly, and Honor Ó'Broilcháin, grand-neice of Joseph Plunkett, and to see the buildings they wish the State to protect and enhance on Moore Street. Number 16 in particular was the final headquarters of the 1916 rising. James Connolly was brought there from the GPO, and then on to number 17, through tunnels and on a stretcher made from a sheet. In a nearby lane the O'Rahilly, shot and fatally injured, passed away, having written a letter to his wife that is now engraved on a plaque that adorns the walls of a building at the lane.
Labour Forum with Environment NGOS in Kinsale
Posted on April 26, 2010
Kinsale, Home of the Transition Town Movement, was the location for Labour's second Environment NGO Forum. The Forum was formally opened by Mayor of Kinsale Tomás O'Brien and addressed by Senator Michael McCarthy, Labour spokesperson on the Marine. Michael commended the people of Kinsale for their initiative in founding the Transition Town Movement and suggested that the transition town model could provide a means for economic activity in towns such as Kinsale, which are experiencing the negative impacts of the recession and other factors such as the regulation of the fishing industry. I also addressed the Forum welcoming the participants and explaining that the forum was organised for us to learn from environmental non governmental organisations and local environmental activists who work on the ground.
The straight vote is crooked
Posted on April 10, 2010
I was watching BBC Newsnight last night and a report from one of the Marginal constituencies, Luton. The BBC reporter was at a bar in Luton where a band was about to play and she interviewed three young men about how they intended to vote. One of them said he was excited and it was his first time to vote, and that there were lots of different candidates presenting, and he would be looking at each of them, and what they were saying, to help make up his mind what way to vote. What I thought when I watched this young man was how the reality for him was that, despite the apparent choice of candidates he thought could choose from, if he voted for one of the candidates with very little chance of winning, then he would have no say in who actually wins the seat and represents him in Westminster. That is the problem with the First Past the Post system in the U.K and their single seat constituencies. British Labour will, according to their election manifesto, change to a system of the single transferable vote in single seat constituencies if they are returned to power. That would be an improvement but still would lead to a disproportionate vote where the winner takes all. It is not really PR STV but rather the alternative vote. Those that vote for smaller parties or less popular candidates could at least transfer their votes to candidates more likely to win and hence try to influence which of the heavy hitters would win the sole seat in the constituency. It would be the equivalent of what happens when we hold bye-elections in this country except it would be for all constituencies. According to Garrett Fitzgerald in an article in the Irish Times last year if there had been single seat constituencies in 2007 Fianna Fail would have won 75 per cent of the seats with 42 per cent of the vote. The Liberal Democrats have the most radical proposal for electoral reform in Britain, which is for elections to parliament to be by PR STV and representatives to be elected from multi seat constituencies. This is the system we have in Ireland. It has also been introduced in recent years in Northern Ireland for the Assembly elections and Scotland for the local elections. Ironic that some people here are calling for a move to single seat constituencies and claiming that this would be reform.
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.
