Ireland and the Politics of Expediency

As Paddy Power have opened a book on the result of the next general election, predicting a Fianna Fail/Fine Gael coalition as one possibility, we are seeing in plain view now the truth about the political ideologies of our major parties and it's that time again : ALL ABOARD THE GRAVY TRAIN.


The general election of 2011 held a lot of promise ... and a lot of promises.  Fine Gael were hailing the end of crony politics, a new era of transparency and an end to the corruption and mismanagement of public administration which allowed Fianna Fail to enjoy a decade of luxury and waste.

The Labour Party, offered the opportunity to go into government with Fine Gael, didn't show the slightest hesitation in abandoning their principles and their election manifesto in exchange for a first class ticket on the gravy train of government.

So what is the overarching ideology of the Irish politician?  What is the predominant political philosophy in Irish politics?

It is EXPEDIENCY.

Pat Rabbitte who would assume the role of Minister for Commmunications ... Josef Goebels would be proud ... admitted that election promises are not worth the paper they're not written on.  "That's just what you do..." to get elected, to seize power.

Tell the people what they want to hear, take their mandate, and burn it just as quickly.

Politics in Ireland is nothing more than a gameshow.

Government doesn't formulate public policy.  It is formulated and drafted by faceless unelected civil servants in the ministerial departments and increasingly is received by them from Brussels, where corporate influence frames social and economic policy in terms of revenue and profit.

Our ministers and TDs have quite clearly demonstrated a level of incompetence and lack of understanding that would see them demoted if not fired in the private sector.  Their disconnectedness from the people directly affected by their decision making has exposed them as wholly unqualified to manage public affairs and lead a country.

When a general election is eventually called we will see yet another display of X Factor popularity contests from those who put themselves forward to represent the Irish public but sell nothing more than empty soundbites and popular lyrics... "create more jobs", "get the country back to work", "greater transparency", "political reform" and on and on to a crescendo of public applause.

None of the major parties have anything to offer.

Simply ask the question: "how will Ireland be better with (insert party here) in government"?

There is no answer because at this moment in time, with this batch of politicians and in this political system getting elected IS the end game.  There is no vision beyond that. 

In the general election gameshow, power is the prize. 

With power comes responsibility ... and Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have proven to be not just irresponsible bu criminally negligent with the power bestowed on them in government.

It is hard to analyse what Sinn Fein or the Left would be like in government, but with real change in the hands of the civil servants that pull all the strings from behind a very thick curtain, it is reasonable to expect little real change in the foreseeable future.

Only a complete dismantling of the current system and a change of the rules of the game will produce any chance of change.  From the party whip system of control, literally silencing the voices of constituents across the country, and the rubber stamp nature of the seanad under government control to the careerist carrots of pay, pension and perks, politics in Ireland is going nowhere fast.

The gravy train is not an unstoppable force if the mood of the nation can be converted into people's movement to derail it.  Without that we will continue as second class passengers ... and it's our blood on the tracks.

The Money In Ireland's Water

(footnote added)
Today, by coincidence, one of the national newspapers have reported that the "regulator" has confirmed that the water (tax) bills for families will reach € 600 when the government end their subvention to Irish Water in the form of free water allowances.

I have been looking at the numbers over the past few days and the math is quite simple ... and unfortunately the headline is perfectly accurate.

THE FIGURES

In Ireland, water authorities supply 1.6 million ltrs of water every day for users.  That equates to 584,000 million ltrs annnually.
(Engineers of Ireland Report 2011)

The average daily consumption per person is 150 ltrs.  That equates to total personal consumption of 251,207 million ltrs annually.
(Census 2011 and other sources)

Of the 584,000 million ltrs supplied, 41% is "lost" through deteriorating infrastructure.  That's 239,440 million ltrs wasted.  Leaving 93,353 million ltrs for commercial consumption.

We have a population of 4,588,252 people. There are 1,658,243 households.  (Census 2011)

251,207 million ltrs divided by 1,658,243 households equates to a usage figure of 151,490 ltrs per year per household.

A family with two children under the age of 18 will get total allowances of 72,000 ltrs.  (30,000 household allwance and 21,000 for each of the children)

The amount of water billable by Irish Water will therefore be 79,490 ltrs.

At € 4.88 /000 ltrs the water bill will be € 388.  The total revenue to Irish water from customers will therefore be € 643 million pa.

Irish Water will also get € 351 from the government for the water that is supplied 'free'.  This adds up to € 583 million pa and will be payed from the € 1.2 billion that you will STILL be paying to the government for water through general taxation including the 5% on motor tax and 2% on VAT which they have not given you back despite setting up a company to make you pay for water...

Irish Water total revenue then will be ... € 1.2 billion ... exactly the figure that the government says it costs to supply water (Dept of Finance Budget estimates. € 715m operating cost and € 500m Capital Expensditure)

That's an important phrase to remember ... Irish Water and the government clearly say that they are supplying your water AT COST!

In 2015 the public will therefore pay € 1.2 billion to the Irish government (no change to taxation which would have actually transferred the taxation revenue to Irish Water) ... PLUS ... € 643m paid directly to Irish Water, excluding revenue from Call Outs and other Service Charges.

So when the government said that people havee to pay for water, what they have actually done is increase the price of water by 50%.

PRIVATISATION

When Irish Water is privatised a number of things will happen.

Firstly, The government will no longer be able to provide a subsidy to a private company for the 'free' water you have been getting in allowances.

The new owner's (VEOLIA) shareholders won;t be happy with their company supplying product free-of-charge to customers so the cost of the subsidy will IMMEDIATELY be passed to the consumer.

Your bill of € 388 will now be a bill of € 739.

but that's only half the story...

The second thing that happens is that VEOLIA will have no interest in supplying a product AT COST!

Remember?  It costs € 1.2bn to supply the water, and the company wil be getting € 1.2bn in revenue.

That means only one thing ... cost cutting and price increases. 

Shareholders will be looking for decent return on their investment ... anything from 5 to 10%.  I've no idea what that will mean in terms of retail price but it at 5%, your bill will then be close to € 800.

As water supply companies will also then become service providers like any other it would not be far-fetched to predict that VAT at 13.5% (or whatever the rate at the time) will be added on top of that.  So now your bill be € 908.

On the cost side, the € 500m that is spent annually on Capital Expenditure by the government (improving the system to make Irish Water a more saleable asset) will be cut by the new owners to generate significant increases in profit.  That means the user will have to pay for repairs, new installations (new housing estates, factories etc) and upgrades.

In fact, what the government are going to do is borrow € 1 billion from the markets ("off-balance-sheet" which just means the debt will be discounted when the international gurus go to set Ireland's credit rating) and use it to do some of those repairs, installations and upgrades to make IW a more attractive package for sale.  And of course YOU and I will still be paying back the € 1 billion borrowed for a decade or more in taxation while the new owners of Irish Water become billionaires.



THE HIDDEN VALUE

Irish Water today is a legal entity charged with the collection of tax for the water supplied.  When VEOLIA buy the company they won't simply be buying a company with annual revenue of between € 1.2bn and € 1.3bn (excluding other income from call-outs, service charges and other work), they will have sole and clear rights to the fresh water natural resource of our country.

Can we put a figure on that? 

Yes.

We use 2% of our fresh water resources. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland)
That is verifiable with some rough math : (584,000 million ltrs supplied to users from a total annual rainfall of 84 trillion ltrs allowing for 50% evaporation etc.)

If we use 2% of our fresh water resource, worth € 1.2bn, it means that we are sitting on an unused asset with a value of € 64bn.    And remember ... that is not a finite asset value like an oil field or a coal mine which can be exhausted.  That is an unlimited, inexhaustible ANNUAL REVENUE value of € 64 bn for as long as rain falls on earth.

Of course that's a virtual figure.  We could never access 100% of our surface and ground water.  However, a company like VEOLIA, which has annual revenues of € 30bn worldwide (the Irish government has annual tax revenue of € 30 bn), has the resources to access potentially 5% of that asset.

VEOLIA won't be buying a company with annual revenue of € 1.2bn from Irish customers, they'll be buying a company with potential global sales of € 2bn to € 3bn.

Demand for water is predicted to increase by 40% up to 2050.  85 % of the world's population live in the driest parts of the planet and the popluation of the planet is expected to increase by approx. 3 billion people by 2050.

Water will become an even more valuable resource than oil.  It is a raw material for a multi-billion euro industry that doesn't have to be mined, drilled (in Ireland most of our water comes from surface water), manufactured, grown or synthesised.  It falls out of the sky.  For free.

If you owned a business that got it's primary raw material for free you'd have a very profitable business.  Or a very wealthy country.

Which would you prefer?

footnote:
When our fresh water rights have been 'sold' to VEOLIA, our rights to use our lakes and rivers will be revoked.  We will no longer be able to fish or enjoy other activities without permits because we will be trespassing on priivate property.  VEOLIA are a corporate entity with no regard for 'rights'.  VEOLIA have significant business interests in Egypt and at this moment are suing the Egyption government in the courts because the Egyptian government raised the national minimum wage ... cutting into VEOLIA's profits.

Irish Water has been setup by the government to do one thing: take more tax from Irish people to pay Bond Holders.  Reported previously in the press but requiring confirmation since October: Irish Water will be allowed to retain profits for 6 years before they pass any benefit back to the consumer.  That means all revenue can be used to repay the interest on Bond Debt ( € 8 bn in 2015).

Once the government have deemed that purpose to have been fulfilled privatisation will be swift and final.  Then they will claim they have 'no power' to interfere in the operations of a private company...

#irishwater

IRELAND - A GIANT AWAKENS

  
For hundreds of years the Irish people have been bystander, witness and victim to crimes against them.  Crimes against their liberty.  Crimes against their property.  Crimes against their beliefs and even crimes against their very existence.


From the invasion of their island, the destruction of their land, their starvation, the scattering of their kin across the globe, the removal of their sovereignty by an empire, the suppression of a rising, the reinstatement of themselves as subjects to a king, their subservience to predation through their fear of God, the trading of their independence to be part of a new European empire, the insidious manipulation of their innocence by a political class driven by arrogance and greed, the betrayal of their dreams by a financial system and today the opportunist exploitation of the docile acceptance of their fate by a new corporate monarchy.

We have not just been asleep for all that time.  To our shame we believed we were impotent.
If we were it is because we were taught to be.  We were controlled, conditioned.

For generations we were taught to lower our heads before those we were told were better than us.  We were told to respect the important people, to respect authority. 

In every city and town in the country we were taught to respect the local Parish Priest, respect the local Bank Manager, respect the local TD,respect the Garda.

Today we know what the Church has done to us.  We know what the banks have done to us.  We know what our politicians have done to us.  And we know what our Garda force and our judiciary are doing to us.

We are not children any more.  We have grown up.  And we have learnt that what we are taught was wrong.

I don’t respect these people any more.

Respect is something that should be taught to children.  But after childhood Respect is something that must be earned.

Maurice McCabe and John Wilson have earned my respect … for their honour and integrity.
I respect Margaretta Darcy for fighting against the use of our island as a US military airbase.
I respect the people of Rossport for what they have had to endure at the hands of a PROSTITUTED Garda Siochana.
I respect the turf cutters for fighting to save their heritage.
I respect the Occupy protesters who camped outside the Central Bank for months with little public support.
I respect Diarmuid O’Flynn and the people of Ballyhea for their crusade… tirelessly entering the ring against the odds when Michael Noonan is too cowardly to fight.
I respect people like Marcus Howard and Steve Kerr and Derek Byrne who are documenting this historic struggle and recording a new chapter in our while the media ignore it.
I respect the people of The Hub and the Land League fighting to stop Irish families being evicted from their homes.
I respect the people of Togher and Watermill Drive and Edenmore for their strength and courage and leadership.

These people are giants among us.

All of these people have one thing in common.  They are not doing it for fame or glory of rmoney or votes.  They’re doing it out of love for their children and pride in their country.

When you realise that people you respect are the ones who are ridiculed,discredited, bullied, dismissed, ignored, beaten, jailed, betrayed and abandoned by the same authorities we were told to bow down to then you know ...

the time of Respect for Authority is over

Now is the time to respect yourselves. But even your self respect has to be earned.

First you have to WAKE UP to what is happening all around you. 

When you’re awake and can see the truth you will be outraged and you will STAND UP.

And when you’re on your feet you will find the courage to SPEAK UP.

And when you have found your voice then you will be ready to RISE UP.

We can all be giants. 

In Bolivia in the year 2000, a 45 year old shoemaker led his people in a revolution that brought down a corporate empire that was destroying his country and enslaving the people in poverty.

The revolution was over the private ownership of the country’s water.  The threw one of the world's biggest engineering companies and the World Bank out of their country even in the face of massive military opposition.

In a speech after he said:  The only force capable of transforming the world, capable of transforming society,is that capacity of unity, organisation and mobilisation of the people in front of any power.

When IW is defeated we will only have won one small victory in a long war.  And if we end our struggle there,then we will have achieved nothing. 

We can achieve so much more from this point.  We can go back and address the other symptoms we ignored: Our oil, our fishing rights, our turf rights, mortgage write downs,the odious debt we are paying now and in the future, and the money we have already given to bondholders.

We can even decide to take back control of our lives by returning to our own currency, our own political independence from the failed EU project, and by designing – for the first time! - our own political system.

I have no message for the parasites in Leinster House.  Why would I address someone for whom I have no respect.  My message is to the people.

From the pain come the dream
From the dream come the vision
From the vision come the people
From the people come the power
From this power come the change

WAKE UP – STAND UP – SPEAK UP – RISE UP

Almost 100 years after Padraig Pearse’s dream that we would be the risen people, we are ready to fulfil his dream and to make our own dreams reality.

We have found our self respect. 

We must not lose it again.

GOVERNMENT HAS ALREADY ACHIEVED OBJECTIVE WITH IRISH WATER... GAME OVER?

We all know that the creation of Irish Water had nothing to do with conservation or people paying for water (again) or even the extraction of more tax from the people.

The creation of Irish Water was a condition imposed by the Troika as part of austerity measures. The Troika (EU/IMF/ECB) couldn't give a fiddlers fuck HOW the Irish government were to pay back bondholders, but their controllers - the major EU corporate sector - had a very clear vision of how to create something that would become a source of rvenue for themselves.

Irish Water was set up so that the supply of water to the Irish people would be taken out of centralised government funding and local council administration and put in the hands of a single entity with powers to bill Irish 'customers' directly.

With the Irish tax payer already contributing € 1.2 billion a year in central taxation to the State for the provision of this key service, the government under instruction from the Troika and at the behest of a major corporation who I believe to be VEOLIA have created a company, using tax payer's money, which will have a GUARANTEED starting revenue of € 600 million.

This means that Irish taxpayers have been handed a 50% increase in the price of their water.

Subsequent opposition necessitated the creation of "allowances" ... making the people believe that they would get a certain amount of 'free water'.

I believe that the whole issue of PPS numbers required by Irish Water was that they could CLAIM BACK the allowances given to households and children FROM THE GOVERNMENT (i.e. from central taxation ... from the € 1.2 billion that we're already paying).

On Six One News last night (nov 19th) the Head of Ervia, Irish Water's parent company and George Lee (failed Fine Gael politician) stated quite clearly that the new pricing proposal WOULDN'T AFFECT THE OVERALL REVENUE TO IRISH WATER. This is because the reduction in direct revenue from the 'customer', approx € 20 million, will be made up by the Government. So they haven't "given" you ANY reduction ... they're just taking what you would have paid Irish Water under the previous pricing structure from the money you are STILL paying through VAT, Motor Tax and other central taxation.

It doesn't matter ti Irish Water WHERE they get their € 600 million from... they don't care ... their revenue is guaranteed. Even with the charges 'capped' they will still get € 600 million.

The primary objective the government had when they set out was the creation of a company.

In January 2015 the first bills will be sent out. Once ONE PERSON pays a water bill, there will be in existence a semi-state company providing a utility service, billing end-users directly and generating revenue. From this point on there will be a de-facto MARKET for water and for a period of time they will be a monopoly supplier of water to Irish 'customers'.

Under EU LAW ... which supercedes all national legislation ... the Government of the day will be obliged to open up the market to other providers. At this point Irish Water will be open for bids...

The call for the inclusion of a clause in the Constitution for the protection of water (and any other natural resources) to be the property of the Irish people, held in trust by the State, I believe will not guarantee the future nationalisation of our water. Because since the Lisbon Treaty was passed (and even before that) our sovereignty has been usurped by the EU machine.

As I understand it, EU legislation trumps ALL national legislation, INCLUDING THE CONSTITUTION!

The inclusion of any amendment to our Constitution will be meaningless as long as we are a part of the EU. The protection or nationalisation of our natural resources in the Constitution (and there is already precedent in international Constitutional Law for this) would be absolutely fine if Ireland was a sovereign nation standing on its own. But since Lisbon (and maybe since 1972) that has no longer been the case.

The government is indifferent to the workings of Irish Water - how much it charges / how usage is measured / how conservation is addressed / how much money it can raise on the money markets using a so-called off-balance-sheet entity etc. The ONLY thing the government is concerned about ... and that is borne out by their own admissions ... is that IRISH WATER (Ltd) EXISTS and that it is HERE TO STAY. Because THAT is the only thing that the Troika, and VEOLIA, are concerned about : that a market has been established; that a corporate entity has been created to administer it; and that customers are being billed directly for the product/service.

When you look at it like this the government have already achieved what they wanted... what they were told to do.

Once the market is open, government subvention to Irish Water in the form of allowances, funding and everything else will come to an end, and whichever private company becomes the supplier of water will not be interested in granting you free-water allowances so every litre will have to be paid for...their shareholders will only be interested in profits and dividends, not your claim to 'rights'.

As the average usage per person is universally accepted to be 54,750ltr per year, at the current price of €4.88 per 000 ltrs (excluding any price increase which the private company might deem appropriate) that means a bill of € 267 per person per year ... or € 1,069 for a household of four people.

Since this will be a service industry it is reasonable to expect that VAT at 13.5% will be charged on top of this just like electricity etc. bring the 4 person household bill to € 1,213.

Not only that but no private profit-focussed company is going to care one little bit about the leakages that occur in the system between the source and the meter outside your house... they're just concerned about the number of litres flowing past the meter. So there will be NO capital investment in the infrastructure from private sources and the State will be left with the cost of pre-meter repairs, upgrades and installations.

That is what faces us in the years to come.

This campaign cannot be stopped until Irish Water has been removed in its entirety because once they receive their first payment from an Irish 'customer' in January it's game over.

After that nothing less than Ireland's secession from Europe will result in Ireland's water becoming the property of the people.

We are not fighting for water ... we are actually fighting for our sovereignty.
#irishwater

previous posts:
The Money in Ireland's Water https://www.facebook.com/notes/paul-madden/the-money-in-irelands-water/10152631392837839

The PPS Issue https://www.facebook.com/notes/paul-madden/why-irish-water-need-your-pps-number/10152632034407839

Status:
Ireland has a land area of 84,421 km2

Our annual rainfall is an average 1000mm

That's a total of 84 TRILLION ltrs of fresh water

@ € 4.88 /000 ltr that's an asset worth € 411 billion EVERY YEAR that doesn't have to be mined, drilled, manufactured, grown or synthesised.

THAT'S why Ireland's natural water resource is on the radar of a company like VEOLIA
We use 2% of it ... with investment in water collection, e.g mega-reservoirs across the country, VEOLIA (a company with annual revenue of € 30bn ... the same as the Irish govt takes in taxation!!), could potentially access 5% or more. All they need are the exclusive rights to it ...

Are we really prepared to do the same thing with our water that we did with our oil?
Between the OIL that exists off-shore and the WATER that falls on the land, we have easily enough asset wealth to give Europe a big FUCK YOU (since they've happily left us to pay 42% of THEIR debt) and take back our sovereignty, independence and financial freedom

In A Time Of Famine, Only The Rat And The Parasite Thrive - Thoughts on Nov 1st (first published on (my) The Emerald Fist blog

More than a week before the nationswide protest of Nov 1st I was invited to speak at the Dublin City Centre gathering.

As it turned out I did not get the chance to speak but I had prepared myself for that eventuality.  A week in politics is a long time and I was expecting that things would change and the list of people wanting to address the crowd would mean that some would be bumped in favour of others.  Nevertheless I began to write what I thought were the important things to say to people on the day.

The thoughts which formed were numerous and my 'speech' was getting longer and longer.  I had so much to say and to try to condense it into a few minutes was looking more and more difficult.  On the morning of Nov 1st, after mentally rehearsing for days, I actually changed what I thought I would say and hoped it would capture the essence of the day, the significance of the protest and perhaps give people something bigger to think about than just an illegal bill for water.

This is the 'extended mix' of (a) what I had originally prepared, (b) the address I finally hoped to give and (c) my thoughts today, the day after Ireland's citizens took to the streets.

IRELAND - LESSONS IN SUFFERING AND SACRIFICE

It is said that "history has a habit of repeating itself".

Almost a century and a half ago the ordinary people of Ireland were in the midst of a holocaust.  During the time of the famine peoople had no food and children were hungry.  One million people emigrated to escape the hardship.  One million more died of starvation.  Families were evicted from their homes by force and thrown out into the mud and the rain.  It was the bleakest time in our nation's history and the story of it is known around the world.

At that time however, the politicians did not go hungry.  The people in authority, the police, and the judiciary.   Did not go hungry.  The landlords, the gentry, the businessmen and the wealthy did not go hungry.  There was food aplenty for those with means but the ordinary people suffered.

It happened because the potato crop failed. 

Today, in 2014, more than 150 years later, the people of Ireland are suffering.  Because the political system has failed.

Families cannot afford three meals a day.  Children going to bed hungry and in the morning go to school hungry.  In the past 6 years since the toxic banks failed only to be saved by our polticians, hundreds of thousands have emigrated to escape the hardship.  Today, half a million families are being threatened with eviction by these same banks.  Homes are being taken by the sheriffs by force and families thrown into the mud and the rain.  Thousands have died. Victims of suicide, pushed to the edge of despair with no vision of a brighter future.

In 2014, the politicians are not suffering.  Their families are not hungry.  The bankers and businessmen and property developers and landlords are not hungry.  The wealthy are not hungry.  Judges and Senior Gardai are not hungry. 

Why would they be?  In a time of famine, it is the rat and the parasite that thrive.

In 1916 a few hundred men rose up and took the power back from an oppressive regime.  They did it not for themselves but for the people and they gave the power to the people in the form of a Proclamation of Independence and a Constitution.  In 1937 the politicians destroyed that constitution and took the power back for themselves.

In eighteen months time we will be back in the capital to celebrate the heroes of Easter 1916.  And the politicians will have front row seats, and give their inspiring speeches and patriotic laments about the sacrifice that those men and women made to give birth to our nation.  The President and Taoiseach will host dignitaries and luminaries and all manner of royalty, state and corporate wealth.  The ordinary of people will be barricaded out.

I don't think I will be celebrating.  I think I will go to some quite place and ask for forgiveness.  For if we return to this historic place in 2016, and have not repeated what Connolly and Pearse and Collins did, then we will have dishonoured their memory.


WE DON'T NEED STRENGTH OF NUMBERS - WE NEED STRENGTH OF RESOLVE

It doesn't take 100,000 people or 200,000 to do it.  The number is not important.  What's important is the resolve. 

In Ballyhea, a village in North Cork, a small group of people have been marching every week for almost four years.  They were marching for two years before I ever heard about them.  They inspired me and few friends to march in solidarity against the bank and the bondholder bailout - the noose that was put around our necks and the necks of our children.  Dublin Says No have marched for more than a year and half every week without fail as one small group prepared to face down the might of the government and say we will not go quietly.

The Ballyhea group have had the resolve not just to march in their own small town, but to travel to Brussels and demand meetings with the heads of the Troika and plead for the Irish people ... something that Michael Noonan hasn't had the balls to do.

The challenge for us is to have the resolve of the people of Ballyhea to continue to demonstrate our disgust and anger at our politicians.  We will bring Irish Water down, but the goernment will retreat and regroup to attack us on another front.  If we do not defend ourselves again and again, in the face of repeated assault on our lives then we will have surrendered the war to the masters of our puppet politicians.



DON'T READ THE HEADLINES - SEE THE TRUTH BEHIND THE SPIN

The (government) media will report that 10,000 marched in Dublin City today and 100,000 marched across the country. 


I say that each one of us represents 10 people who could not be with us today. 

Each of us represents friends and family who could not make it.  Our young children.  Our elderly parents.  Our sick.  Those who are working.  We also represent 500,000 homeowners, equating to more than a million people under threat of repossession and eviction from the banks we bailed out - afraid to leave their homes becasue the sheriff and the banks are ready to move in and put them out on the street.  Hundreds of thousands of our friends and family who have emigrated since 2008 because they see no possibility of a future in the country of their birth.  And thousands of friends and family who did not make it to see this day - victims of suicide through desperation and despair.

If there are 300,000 people marching in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galways, Dundalk, Mullingar, Clonmel, Cavan, Donegal and the small towns and villages of Ireland, then there are 3 million people protesting against a political system that has betrayed and abandoned them to the jackals of the banks and the multinational corporations preying on their lives.



IRISH WATER - JUST ONE SYMPTOM OF THE REAL DISEASE.

Irish Water is not the problem.  It is just the latest symptom of the disease that is steadily killing out country.  The disease is our political system.  Corrupt, broken, wasteful, unjust, inhumane.

Our politicians, who we elected to represent us and serve us, betrayed and abandoned us in 2008 when they guaranteed the deposits of the super rich with the taxes of working men and women; when they bailed out the banks of Ireland, Europe and the US who financial experts and economists now agree should have been allowed to fail; and when they bailed out the bondholders of Wall St and London and Tokyo - gamblers who bet on a terminally sick dog - the Irish economy.

The infusion of money into the banks was authorised by the European Central Bank on the condition that the money printed for the infusion would be taken back out of the Irish economy over time so that the economy would not overheat and reignite the fuse that would bring us to the point of meltdown for a second time.
When the politicians turned that promise into a contract written in blood the fate of generations was sealed.

As a promise it could have been broken ... after all that's what politicians do.  But as sovereign debt, it became the chains with which to bind the people of Ireland into a life of slavery.  We live to work and we work for absentee landlords and paymasters who will not go hungry while Ireland suffers a new holocaust.

There were other symptoms along the way to November 1st 2014.  The household charge, which we fought off only to have it mutate into a much stronger and untreatable Property tax.  The removal of medical cards from even children with serious illness and medical conditions.  The Universal Social Charge: a tax that by the inclusion of 'Universal' in the title seems somehow noble and even unifying.  The closure of hospitals and cuts to health services.  The removal of critical educational support for those most in need.  There were other attacks to subsections of society that, although massively punitive to those affected, would be small enough to go unnoticed by most and those hit would be of such a small number as could be easily ignored, if their voices were ever heard.

But we could not ignore water.  Whether it was a tax too far, a human right, a public service not to be privatised, a political and administrative fuck-up, a charge on something that was not fot for purpose or some other reason, we marched for water.

When Irish Water is consigned to the scrap heap, along with now-third-hand meters and the board have had their fleet of mercs taken off them, the disease will still be there.  Festering.  Designing a new attack which will produce a new symptom.  And maybe we will treat that symptom.  And maybe we will beat it too.  But the disease will remain.

Politics is the disease.  The politicial system is cancerous.  And polticians are not the ones who will cure it.  If your waiting for politicians to make things better then you'd better prepare your funeral sooner rather than later. 

We elect them to represent us.  They are supposed to work in service of the public.  But politics in Ireland is not about Public Service.  It is about Self Service.  And by Christ do they help themselves.

WE ARE THE CURE

Treating the symptoms will only gain us temproary relief.  We need to address the cause of our ills and that is the political system.

It will not take much to do this.

The solution is NOT a new government; it is NOT more politicians; and it is NOT more political parties ... not under the current system.

The three most important solutions to our ailments (in my opinion) are these:

1.  The reinstatement of the Right of Recall which was part of Ireland's original (and usurped) constitution which stated that the people, by simple petition in sufficient numbers, could demand the dissolution of Dail Eireann.  With this power, a small proportion of the numbers who marched on November 1st could remove the government and call a general election.

2.  The abolition of the Party Whip System.  This insidious distortion of free speech completely silences the voices of the people in every constituency who send their representatives (TDs) to Dail Eireann.  There is no democracy when local TDs are used simply as voting cards to implement EU and corporate policy drafted by the unelected masters of the party leadership.

3.  A complete reform of Oireachtas salaries, expenses, perks and pensions which attract career politicians who have more interest in self service than public service.

Another important change would be the electoral process of the Seanad which should be the watchdog of government.  Personally I think a reassessment of our membership of Europe is a life and death issue for the future of our nation.  The old argument of "well, Europe was good to us...we got grant money ...and agricultural money ... and were attractive to foreign multinational investment etc etc" is all meaningless now.  We're paying back everything we EVER got from Europe ... with serious interest.  The EEC we joined in 1972 is a totally different beast to the EU that exists today.  It was originally a political community of nations aimed at improving trade.  Today it is the trading floor for European workers wages, bought and sold by corporate and banking giants, holding governments to ransom, bleeding every opportunity for profit under a banner of progress and prosperity.

These are the things we should be marching for even more than taxes and charges and cuts.

Change the system.  Cure the disease.  Or watch your country die a slow and painful death.

Michael Noonan: Bondholder ...now Insider Trader?

Michael Noonan's betrayal of the Irish people continued this week with a nod and a wink to potential investors in the state owned Allied Irish Bank.


After it was revealed that the EU have put no legal requirement on AIB to repay €21 billion of tax payer's money invested to bail it out, Michael Noonan "issued a warning to investors" not to buy shares in the bank.

As the currently available trading stock of the bank is less than 1% , the other 99% being owned by the State one could have imagined this would have had little effect on the share price and thus the market valuation of the company.  However with the re-privatisation of the bank due to take place by the middle of next year, traders dumped shares in the hope of not losing money on their holdings.

Noonan's statement of revelation that the bank is currently over-valued however seems to be a deliberate manipulation of the market.  What Finance Director of any company would publicly reveal such information and not expect that the value of their company's shares would plummet?

With a debt owed to the taxpayer of € 21 billion wiped off the company's balance sheet, and the resulting loss of a further € 16 billion in the value of shares, the Irish taxpayer has, in one week!, been stung for another € 37 billion on top of previous bailout and bond costs.

There is no gain for the taxpayer if Noonan buys up the outstanding 1%.

So what is the effect of Noonan's announcement?

Well they're certainly not the unemployed; the working public on minimum wage and earning at or below the industrial average; the young families trying desperately to save money to buy new homes despite being massively overtaxed. 

They are not the pensioners who face another winter risking their lives with a choice between food and heat. 

They are not the single fathers who are between one and two thousand euro worse off in income tax after two budgets while TDs are seven hundred euro better off. 

They are not the families crippled with bills who have lost medical cards for their children, many with serious illness and painful disability. 

They are not the families being launched mercilessly into the street by the bailed-out banks for mortgage arrears with no protection from the State.

The investors are the same gamblers that drove the Irish economy over the cliff and were thrown a rope by two governments that cost € 70 billion paid for with our taxes.

Michael Noonan has once again proven what has become painfully obvious to the Irish people.  That Business and Banking come first ... and People a very poor second.

On a visit to New York on Nov 14th, the same day Noonan took another € 37 billion from people's pockets, Enda Kenny was in New York where he did about the only thing he is intellectually capapble of doing ... pushing the starting button to open trading on the New York Stock Exchange like a bewildered Homer Simpson. 

Later that day, at a function for major business leaders in the US, Kenny announced that "we" would rebuild Ireiand to be FIRST the best small country in the world to do business, SECOND the best small country in the world to raise a family and THIRD the best small country in the world to grow old. 

1st BUSINESS (MONEY)  
2nd PEOPLE

THAT is the priority of this government and indeed the previous government, who sat back while the contrived privatisatio of Ireland Inc. was engineered by the world's financial vultures.

Politicians are proving to us on a DAILY BASIS that the people come second.  That MONEY comes first, for them and their mates, and people come a poor second ... poor because it's the PEOPLE'S money that make the RICH rich.

The banks have been bailed-out and well taekn care of ... and now they have been given a heads up by Noonan so that if they buy AIB now - in HIS WORDS - they will lose money.

As Irish Minister for Finance and controller of the PEOPLE'S AIB bank, it is Noonan's job to MAXIMISE the return from the sale of AIB for the Irish people.  It would seem to me that his absolute duty is to manage the bank so that the share price is ABSOLUTELY MAXIMISED ...even if that means it is over-valued ... becauser that is how the people will benefit most from the reprivatisation of the bank.

Noonan has not done that.  He has protected bankers', bondholders', investment companies' and traders' money ... by taking it once again from the people.

This is an absolute betrayal of trust, a dereliction of his duty to the public and the actions of someone with a vested interest.  It is Insider Trading.

I wonder how many shares Michael Noonan picked up for himself on the Stock Exchange on November 15th...?

Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) by individuals with access to non-public information about the company. In various countries, trading based on insider information is illegal.

John Walsh Business Editor Irish Examiner Nov 11 2014

AIB gets a ‘free pass’ on €21bn it owes us

The EU has put no legal requirement on AIB to repay the €21bn in bailout funds it has received from Irish taxpayers.
In the restructuring document published by the Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission, it stipulates that AIB will have to pay the Government excess capital it is holding above legal requirements at the end of December 2016. This is unlikely to be more than a few hundred million euro.

AIB has received just under €21bn in state aid from the Government since 2009. Michael Noonan, the finance minister, holds 99.8% of the common equity in the bank as well as €3.5bn in preference shares and €1.6bn of contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds. The Government has put a current valuation on the bank of just under €14bn.

One market source described the European Commission’s ruling on AIB as a “free pass”.

However, a spokesman for the Department of Finance said that the Government, as the majority shareholder, would do what was best for the taxpayer in terms of recouping as much of the original investment as possible.

Michael Noonan speaking at the launch of AIB flagship branch in Limerick Nov 17 2014

Noonan urges investors not to buy shares

“The value attributed to the shares in the stock market at the moment would put a nominal value of €55bn on AIB, it’s not worth that. So the shares are overvalued but it’s because of the restructuring.

“So I am issuing a kind of a warning to investors. Wait until it’s restructured before you buy. If you buy now you will lose money.”

Donal O'Donovan Irish Independent Nov 18 2014

€16bn 'wiped off' AIB shares following Noonan warning on value

Shares in AIB have fallen by almost a fifth today to 7.2 cents each. Together with yesterday’s sharp fall it means around €16bn of notional value has been wiped out since yesterday afternoon.

On Monday the Minister for Finance  Michael Noonan warned that shares in the bank were overvalued by the markets – prompting the sell off.

The minister will bring forward plans by the end of the year setting out the route to reprivatisation of AIB.
Based on current trading AIB shares still trade at a multiple to most banks, including Bank of Ireland, so further dramatic falls are expected.

That privatisation process will dramatically increase the portion of bank shares available to trade from the current minimal levels of less than 1pc.

The sale process, which will be accompanied by a tidying up exercise to reduce the number of outstanding shares, is expected to kick off in earnest during the second quarter of next year.

Irish Water - everyone still missing the big picture

While the excluded classes may have finally decided to raise their voices on 11th October 2014 at the national Right2Water protest in Dublin, most people don't realise the big picture in relation to the creation of Irish Water and the long term objective.

For most people, the introduction of water charges is a matter of financial concern, health concern and an end to their acceptance of cronyism and the political agenda to appease the rich at the expense of the poor. 

The politicians have made two arguments in defense of the establishment of Irish Water.  The first is that the supply of water needs to be paid for in these times of austerity.  The second is that water is a precious resource that needs to be managed better and conservation is a key factor in the company's creation.

Most people know (now) that water is already paid for.  We pay € 1.2 billion each year through motor tax and VAT primarily, as these taxes had 5% and 2% respectively specifically apportioned to cover the cost of public water.  So the first argument that water needs to be paid for disingenuously implies that it is not already paid for.  If the amount raised by the existing measures is unsufficient to cover the cost of supply, then surely the simplest and cheapest way to increase the revenue accruing to the government would be to add a half percent more on to motor tax or VAT...?

The government has chosen not to do that.  Instead it has decided to take € 200 million (half of the eventual cost) of public money to create a commercial entity to collect the tax that adding 0.5% to motor tax would have done for € 0.00

The second argument is that water conservation is apparently suddenly and completely out of the blue, (though parties have listed it in manifestos before now) a major issue of serious political concern (with lots of frowning and nodding) for our politicians.

Well, if conservation is a priority issue, I would have thought that a marketing campaign and a schools education programme would be the first thing to try.  For € 2 million the government could have had a snappy tv and radio campaign with Jedward and BOD and Imelda May encouraging us to bring the dog into the bath with us, and a schools education programme so that our children could come home from school and hassle us into washing the car from a bucket and going to the toilet in a synchronised conga for a group flush.

And if it didnt work, for the same money they spent setting up a company to tax us, the government could repeat the campaign every year for the next one hundred years...!

But they didn't.  They set up a commecial entity which will charge us for the water we already pay the government for, and who are under NO obligation to put ONE CENT back into infrastructure, construction or repair in a system where we don't even cconsume 50% of the water they supply because it is lost back into the ground (and back to the reservoirs) through leaks. 

Get it?  Half the water we are paying for we don't get and will pay for again and again, over and over.  That's like going into a restaurant and asking for a litre of water, paying for a litre, getting half a litre and the other half gets put into the next litre you order and pay for but only get half a litre and so on and so on.

So if the main two political arguments are not factual, then what is the purpose of Irish Water?  Privatisation ... of course ... but that still doesn't give the full picture.

Irish Water won't be privatised for a few years (we presume).  Over that time the government, continue to bleat about conservation and the need to upgrade an antiquated system, will pour millions of euro of PUBLIC money into a massive construction (what?? the construction industry has another government cheque book to rape ... yes.  sorry.) programme to make the Irish water supply system attractive enough for privatisation ... because a savvy businessman buying a second hand car will get the seller to foot the bill of service and repair if he possibly can before haggling for the lowest possible price.

We all know that privatisation of state bodies is a nice little earner for the politicians who engineer it and support.  Directorships, preferential shares, no doubt they get free whatever (in this case water ... whatever he says about his intention to pay, you think Enda Kenny is actually going to see a bill land on his doorstep !!??), junkets, tickets to the Champions Leagure finals, holidays, conferences (with family in tow), Christmas hampers that would feed a small village, invitations to dinner with Paul McGinley, and the list goes on.

The big players like Denis O'Brien (who wasn't a big player until Michael Lowry gave him ... GAVE HIM!!! ... a licence to print money with ESAT), will be queueing up to bid on an asset they know they will get at a massively discounted price, making hundreds of millions of euro in revaluation overnight.  By that time they will have a much improved infrastructure that the Irish public will have paid for ... NOT OUT OF THE MONEY YOU'LL PAY IN WATER CHARGES, DON'T FORGET ... THIS WILL BE OUT OF GENERAL TAXATION!  They won't need spend on the system ... they won't have to repair any leaks that are deemed to be your responsibility, and we'll have all the regulation we need to protect the consumser, just like the financial regulator protected us from predatory banking practice.

So that means that the end game is a publicly financed private monopoly on the supply of water to Irish consumers ... right?

WRONG!!

That is not even close to the big picture.

Take a company like Veolia for example.  Some of you will have heard of them. 


Veolia Environnement S.A. is a French transnational company with activities in four main service and utility areas traditionally managed by public authorities – water supply and management, waste management, energy and transport services. In 2012, Veolia employed 318,376 employees in 48 countries. Its revenue in that year was recorded at €29.4 billion (wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veolia_Environnement)

Veolia Water (formerly is the water division of the French company Veolia Environnement and the world's largest supplier of water services.
Veolia has water operations in 66 countries across the globe, employing 95,789 workers worldwide and serving completely or partly about 64 metropolitan areas with more than 139 million inhabitants. It is strongest in Europe, particularly in its native France and Germany. Its biggest competitor is Suez Environnement.

Veolia is in the news this week (13th Oct 2014) because it has been charged with the disposal of contaminated items from the home of the Dallas man who died of Ebola .... that's where they rank in global services.

Why would they be interested in Ireland?  Well, for a start, they're already here.  http://www.veolia.ie/

Veolia Ireland have contracts with several county councils for water and waste management, they operate the LUAS in Dublin, and this year bought Dalkia, a major supplier of energy to industry.

When the gate is opened for bidding on the government's shiny new toy Irish Water, Veolia will be one of the first in the queue, with Denis O'Brien not far behind.

Why would Veolia be interested in little old Ireland? ... Here's why.

THE BIG PICTURE:

According to the Global Water Forum, set up under UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) and UniTwin (Unesco Chair in Water Economics and Transboundary Water Governance), the global outlook for (fresh) water covers four issues: the availability of the resource, water quality, access to water supply and sanitation, and water-related disasters.
http://www.globalwaterforum.org/2012/05/21/water-outlook-to-2050-the-oecd-calls-for-early-and-strategic-action/

Here are some key points to note:

1. Resource availability

Water demand is projected to increase by 55% globally between 2000 and 2050.

This situation is compounded by two factors. First, the number of people living in river basins under severe water stress is projected to reach 3.9 billion by 2050, totalling over 40% of the world’s population. In water stressed basins, small changes in water regimes (droughts) can have major consequences. Second, groundwaterdepletion, which more than doubled between 1960 and 2000, may become the greatest threat to agriculture and urban water supplies in several regions in the coming decades.

85% of the world population lives in the driest half of the planet.

783 million people do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. 

Global population growth projections of 2–3 billion people over the next 40 years, combined with changing diets, result in a predicted increase in food (and water) demand of 70% by 2050.

Over half of the world population lives in urban areas, and the number of urban dwellers grows each day. Urban areas, although better served than rural areas, are struggling to keep up with population growth (WHO/UNICEF, 2010).

With expected increases in population, by 2030, food demand is predicted to increase by 50% (70% by 2050) (Bruinsma, 2009), while energy demand from hydropower and other renewable energy resources will rise by 60% (WWAP, 2009). These issues are interconnected – increasing agricultural output, for example, will substantially increase both water and energy consumption, leading to increased competition for water between water-using sectors.

Water availability is expected to decrease in many regions. Yet future global agricultural water consumption alone is estimated to increase by ~19% by 2050, and will be even greater in the absence of any technological progress or policy intervention.

Water for irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures on freshwater resources. Agriculture accounts for ~70% of global freshwater withdrawals (up to 90% in some fast-growing economies).

Economic growth and individual wealth are shifting diets from predominantly starch-based to meat and dairy, which require more water. Producing 1 kg of rice, for example, requires ~3,500 L of water, 1 kg of beef ~15,000 L, and a cup of coffee ~140 L (Hoekstra and Chapagain, 2008). This dietary shift is the greatest to impact on water consumption over the past 30 years, and is likely to continue well into the middle of the twenty-first century (FAO, 2006).

About 66% of Africa is arid or semi-arid and more than 300 of the 800 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in a water-scarce environment – meaning that they have less than 1,000 m3 per capita (NEPAD, 2006).

Over 90 international water agreements were drawn up to help manage shared water basins on the African continent (UNEP, 2010).
2. Water quality
The quality of surface water outside the OECD is expected to deteriorate in the coming decades.
The consequences will be increased eutrophication, biodiversity loss and disease. Micro-pollutants(medicines, cosmetics, cleaning agents, and biocide residues) are an emerging concern.

3. Water supply and sanitation

Despite tremendous efforts in the last two decades, the number of city dwellers without access to an improved water source has increased since 1990; as urbanisation has outpaced the development of infrastructure. More than 240 million people (most of them in rural areas) will still be without access to an improved water source by 2050. The situation is even more daunting given that access to an improved water source does not always mean access to safe water. In addition, 1.4 billion people are projected to be without access to basic sanitation in 2050, with severe consequences on health and environment, as well as hampering water uses downstream.

4. Water-related disasters

The number of people at risk from floodsis projected to rise from 1.2 billion today to around 1.6 billion in 2050 (nearly 20% of the world’s population). The economic value of assets at risk is expected to be around USD 45 trillion by 2050, a growth of over 340% from 2010.



Big Phil has gone to Europe, so he's out of the way, right?

WRONG!

The European Parliament hasn't been a political structure for a long time now.  It is now a trading floor, controlled by corporate players in industry and finance, with MEP's merely the traders on the floor ... buying and selling the assets of member states to the multi-billionaire businessmen (like Denis O'Brien) competing for shares of global asset resources (labour, natural resources, political power...and by extension...tax revenue).

Brussels has an entire sub-industry of wheelers and dealers lobbying EU politicians and policy makers on behalf of companies like Veolia, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, the European Auto industry, Food giants like Nestle, the major banking, finance and insurance companies that engineered the financial crisis and the list goes on...  Brussels lobby groups are at least as powerful as the lobby groups that champion US industry in Washington.

Phil Hogan hasn't retired to Europe, he has been sent as Ireland's trading floor runner in the global sell-out to corporations that dwarf national governments.  And he's not negotiating for you, he's doing it for his political buddies (all parties included), the golf-club-set, the horsey set, the golden circle financiers like Fingleton, bankers like Drumm and Boucher, movers like John Tierney and developers like Johnny Ronan.

IN A WORLD WHERE WATER WILL BE THE NEW OIL, IRELAND COULD BE A COUNTRY WEALTHY ENOUGH TO PROVIDE FREE PUBLIC SERVICES INCLUDING HEALTH, EDUCATION, INFRASTRUCTURE, WELFARE AND DEVELOPMENT FOR IRISH PEOPLE.

We consume 2% of our frech water resources in Ireland.  If we could harness even 5% of our resource, we could export clean fresh water across the world, and even trade water for oil with the Arab states.

THE CORPORATE PLAYERS KNOW THIS.  THEY REALISE WHAT THE MARKET (AND MARKETING) VALUE OF FRESH CLEAN WATER FROM IRELAND WOULD BE AS A COMMODITY.

HOW MANY OF OUR POLITICIANS REALISE THIS?  VERY FEW I WOULD THINK.

OUR POLITICIANS WILL GIVE AWAY THIS POSSIBLE FUTURE FOR IRELAND FOR THE PRICE OF A SIGNATURE OR A VOTE TO SECURE A VERY COMFY RETIREMENT.

We gave away our oil when we could have been the richest country in Europe, with free education, free healthcare, free public transport, true social welfare and a country we could call our own.

Now we are seeing the possibility of the give-away of our most precious resource.  The infinite supply of the highest quality, soon to be most valuable commodity on the planet.

How many industries do you know that have a raw material of unlimited, infinite supply, that is totally free.  It doesn't have to be mined.  It doesn;t have to be grown.  It doesn't have to be manufactured or synthesised.  It falls out of the sky for God's sake!

THAT IS WHAT IS AT STAKE.  OUR POLITICIANS DON'T SEE IT BECAUSE THEY ARE SHORT-SIGHTED PARISH PUMP HUCKSTERS CHASING A FREE PINT AND SEAT AT THE ALL-IRELAND FINAL.

THE MAJOR CORPORATIONS OF THE WORLD DO SEE IT.  THEY SEE THE BIG PICTURE ... AND THEY PLAN THE END GAME.

We have the key to a future we can't even imagine - if we can only see it.

This may be the last chance we have to save our country from becoming Ireland Ltd.

,