Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday, March 13, 2015
Everything you need to know about ReNua Ireland revealed on day 1
So we've had four years of Fine Gael led austerity, a Fine gael that Ms Creighton was a member of and as Mininster of State for European Affairs was the champion of all things Europe/Troika/Frankfurt in the most right wing fascist political regime in the country's history.
And today Creighton reveals for the first time the name of her new plaything, ReNua Ireland. Astutely avoiding a launch on April 1st, she has unwittingly provided the country with a nonetheless spectacular Friday the 13th moment: a glimpse that the addition of yet another right of centre right party in Irish politics means the nightmare of austerity is set to continue with renewed zeal.
With our health system approaching a state of apocalypse; our education system which has been one of the major lights in our history under threat; evictions of securitised homes by anonymous absentee landlords not seen since the 1870's; homlessness in Dublin up by 40% in only 8 months; one in six children at risk of poverty in the 21st century!!; children with serious illness or terminal conditions denied medical assistance by the state; an emerging low-wage labour "market" which should more acurately be called a labour "trap"; corruption, abuse of office, tax evasion and all manner of crime covered up by the State and the criminals protected and shielded by political influence, what has been the VERY FIRST PIECE OF POLICY revealed by Creighton?
More business for the banks!
That's right, Creighton's number one priority, the first thing she has on her agenda in addressing the state of the country's woes is to help the banks to be able to provide loans to people with no jobs to buy things they can't afford and a zero-risk repayment system whereby the banks get their profits directly from the State coffers.
Well, I guess she really wasn't kidding with the whole "Reboot Ireland" thing then. The banking system failed ... when a system fails, you reboot it.
With Kenny it was "First: the best little country in the world to do business" - with Creighton it's obviously "First: the best little country in the world to do banking".
Creighton's weak launch is a testimony to the dearth of real intellect among our politicians. When ReBoot was launched previously it was announced that the party was seeking donations (handouts) of €1million ... without a single piece of policy or even ideology to stand behind. Basically the pitch was "POLITICAL PARTY FOR SALE" ... with the policies being "formulated" in return for donations and presumably the patron's agenda given priority in direct proportion to the amount of money profered.
Apparently a long way short of her €1million war chest Creighton has launched ReNua without the help of even basic PR guidance ... otherwise she wouldn't have made "Easy Bank Loans for the Unemployed" her first piece of policy.
Creighton is a disappointing affirmation that even amongst the younger members of the political system there is a monumental void of reason, nouse, logic and creative thinking within the halls of Gangster House.
She is not the new generation of politician ... she is simply the offspring of the dinosaur generation.
She has shown herself on day one to be just as out of touch and disconnected from the real world as her political father, Kenny. Where has she been for the past 6 months? Obviously NOT talking to irish people suffering under her FG austerity policies. Obviously NOT walking the corridors of our war-zone hospitals. Obviously NOT speaking with water meter protesters actu
ally finding out WHY they get up at 5am to peacefully demonstrate against the imposition of an unjust tax.
She has most likely been spending her months in Europe, glad-handing her EPP buddies and looking for support from the REAL policy makers for Ireland, selling herself as the new face of Euro-Sycophancy. She has no doubt been telling the corporate giants who hold the strings of Brussels that she's ready for the job should Kenny decide in one final act of betrayal to the Irish people before the next election to take his seat at the EU Council table as reward for protecting their interests. Creighton's message to Europe is most certainly "the show will go on".
When you think about it, a (new-)blue shirt politician like Creighton behaves exactly to type with her new party launch.
And today Creighton reveals for the first time the name of her new plaything, ReNua Ireland. Astutely avoiding a launch on April 1st, she has unwittingly provided the country with a nonetheless spectacular Friday the 13th moment: a glimpse that the addition of yet another right of centre right party in Irish politics means the nightmare of austerity is set to continue with renewed zeal.
With our health system approaching a state of apocalypse; our education system which has been one of the major lights in our history under threat; evictions of securitised homes by anonymous absentee landlords not seen since the 1870's; homlessness in Dublin up by 40% in only 8 months; one in six children at risk of poverty in the 21st century!!; children with serious illness or terminal conditions denied medical assistance by the state; an emerging low-wage labour "market" which should more acurately be called a labour "trap"; corruption, abuse of office, tax evasion and all manner of crime covered up by the State and the criminals protected and shielded by political influence, what has been the VERY FIRST PIECE OF POLICY revealed by Creighton?
More business for the banks!
That's right, Creighton's number one priority, the first thing she has on her agenda in addressing the state of the country's woes is to help the banks to be able to provide loans to people with no jobs to buy things they can't afford and a zero-risk repayment system whereby the banks get their profits directly from the State coffers.
 |
| http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/revealed-lucindas-plan-to-repay-bank-loans-directly-from-dole-31063117.html |
With Kenny it was "First: the best little country in the world to do business" - with Creighton it's obviously "First: the best little country in the world to do banking".
Creighton's weak launch is a testimony to the dearth of real intellect among our politicians. When ReBoot was launched previously it was announced that the party was seeking donations (handouts) of €1million ... without a single piece of policy or even ideology to stand behind. Basically the pitch was "POLITICAL PARTY FOR SALE" ... with the policies being "formulated" in return for donations and presumably the patron's agenda given priority in direct proportion to the amount of money profered.
Apparently a long way short of her €1million war chest Creighton has launched ReNua without the help of even basic PR guidance ... otherwise she wouldn't have made "Easy Bank Loans for the Unemployed" her first piece of policy.
Creighton is a disappointing affirmation that even amongst the younger members of the political system there is a monumental void of reason, nouse, logic and creative thinking within the halls of Gangster House.
She is not the new generation of politician ... she is simply the offspring of the dinosaur generation.
She has shown herself on day one to be just as out of touch and disconnected from the real world as her political father, Kenny. Where has she been for the past 6 months? Obviously NOT talking to irish people suffering under her FG austerity policies. Obviously NOT walking the corridors of our war-zone hospitals. Obviously NOT speaking with water meter protesters actu
ally finding out WHY they get up at 5am to peacefully demonstrate against the imposition of an unjust tax.
She has most likely been spending her months in Europe, glad-handing her EPP buddies and looking for support from the REAL policy makers for Ireland, selling herself as the new face of Euro-Sycophancy. She has no doubt been telling the corporate giants who hold the strings of Brussels that she's ready for the job should Kenny decide in one final act of betrayal to the Irish people before the next election to take his seat at the EU Council table as reward for protecting their interests. Creighton's message to Europe is most certainly "the show will go on".
When you think about it, a (new-)blue shirt politician like Creighton behaves exactly to type with her new party launch.
- Create a catchphrase for the media to run with : Reboot Ireland.
- Come up with a party name with a bit of gaelic in it to appeal to nationalist (even republican) tendencies, but with a "new-vision/renaissance" slant to appeal to the liberal progressives: ReNua Ireland
- Invite people to join up (and donate .... the're looking for a handout of €1million) ... without declaring any policy positions which might piss off potential large investors.
- After the launch, begin to outline vague policy positions based on the unwritten understandings of your new patrons, making sure they are easily negotiable in the context of coalition.
It's all just the same old game, the same tired formulaic vacuum - no
substance, no true ideology, no vision, no creativity, no hope.
There won't be any surprises from reNua Ireland I'm sad to say, because on day one they've already started on the back foot with a launch from which they may never recover. Lucinda Creighton may be a minorly astute politician, but she's no Harriet Houdini.
Jog on, Lucy ... you had your shot.
There won't be any surprises from reNua Ireland I'm sad to say, because on day one they've already started on the back foot with a launch from which they may never recover. Lucinda Creighton may be a minorly astute politician, but she's no Harriet Houdini.
Jog on, Lucy ... you had your shot.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Conscience v Injustice - The Irresistible Force Meets The Immovable Object
It's the great debate of the day, dividing the population between two poles; one of outrage and one of support.
Have the water meter protests gone too far? Are they an affront to democracy? Have the water meter protesters damaged the popular mass movement against Irish Water and the austerity water charges?
What drives a person to act in such a way as to impede another from carrying out their job? to protest in a manner some might find aggressive or intimidating? to shout remarks that some would find unacceptable or offensive?
The delicate balance between Conscience and Injustice.
Whatever your opinion on how the country came to a point of financial crisis, either by negligent regulation, wanton greed, bank corruption, lack of political foresight or any other cause, we are where we are. No doubt future students of history and economics will be writing theses on the Rise of the Tiger and its eventual demise, but at the present moment in toime (as Kenny Cunningham would say), we have to live in circumstances that make ordinary daily life extremely difficult.
In 2015, families are experiencing pretty much the same quality of life that their parents and grand parents experienced in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many have levels of income that require every penny to be budgeted with the book-keeping skills of Ebenezer Scrooge: juggling between food, heat, rent, electricity, clothes and other household bills. Poverty levels have increased to the pint where 31% of the population are living in deprivation compared to 12% in 2007.
A UNICEF report last year found that Ireland ranked 37 out of 41 in a league table of child poverty in Western countries. Homlessness is increasing daily as more and more families are losing their homes to the banks that were bailed out.
You know the rest.
Most people who are now protesting have likely never protested or been involved in any political activity before in their lives. What has ignited a spark in them to mobilise is their conscience. It prevents them from accepting that the responsibility for getting the country out of its current mess has been nailed to their backs when they had no hand or part in the creation of it.
Their conscience prevents them from accepting that they should contribute € 9,000 each to the cost of the European banking crisis while he average cost of the crash across all European nations is € 192 per head. Germans have been the next hardest hit but each German still only pays € 491 per person. The Irish cost also does NOT include € 18 BILLION raided from the National Pension Fund to bail out insolvent banks...
When you have small children, still in primary school, it is absolutely unconscienable that they have a debt (somebody elses debt!) to pay off before they begin their lives. Indeed children born in maternity wards across the country in this decade will have a debt of € 9,000 each to pay off before they've drawn their first breath.
If this situation is acceptable to you, then your priorities, your humanity, your conscience and even your national pride should be re-examined with immediate haste. If you are prepared to allow this situation to exist without any objection then you are willing to accept the shackles of debt like a beaten-down slave.
If your conscience does not allow you to find this acceptable then you are on the first steps to understanding how protesters can initially find the conviction to take to the streets and ultimately arrive at a point of such desperation as to become more vocal, more active, more inflamed and potentially more 'militant'.
It is your conscience that draws the line where your protest ends, be it venting on social media, writing stern emails to TDs, marching on the streets, obstructing social and economic policy that you deem to be unjust.
The removal of medical cards from children with serious illness and life threatening disease. THe removal of SNA support for children with learning disabilities. The indifference to groups like the people of Priory Hall. The lip-service-concern for homelessness only passingly acknowledged following the death of Jonathan Corrie. The daily suffering of hundreds of people on hospital trollies across the country. The cynical attempt to dismantle the political system and hijack democracy with the Seanad referendum. Numerous cuts to public services and newly dreamt-up ways to extract money from working families have caused immeasurable distress, the effects of which are visible in protest action now and may result in severe long-lasting implications for men, women and children in the future.
What decides whether you write a letter to a TD, vote for particular candidate, take part in a march, stand with placard, occupy a constituency office or bank, attend a meeting, create a facebook page or stand in a hole while a water meter is being installed is a matter of personal conscience.
None of the jailed protesters have been jailed for committing a crime. No law has been broken, A court order has been breached but as better men than us have said:
The "behaviour" of ALL the water meter protests has unequivocally demonstrated that peoples' consciences have been ignited while at the same time there is an amazing and inspiring respect for human rights and property. In Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece, the countries worst hit by the Eurobank crash and the effects of austerity policy, there have been huge demonstrations which HAVE disintegrated into violent conflict. Private and public property has been destroyed, cars have been burned out, running battles with armed police and military forces have happened, rubber bullets have been fired into crowds and lives have been put at great risk.
Nothing like that has happened here as protesters continue to show intelligent, mature restraint and consciousness towards others. At the same time the Garda Siochana have demonstrated an eagerness to launch themselves into situations to either provoke violence among protesters (the Dec 10th O'Connell Bridge charge) or use protests as an opportunity to unleash their own psychotic lust for confrontation. The authorities and media have seized on every minor incident like a Minister "trapped" in the comfort of a fifty thousand euro state limousine to portray peaceful non-violent demonstrators as akin to ISIS terrorists or some other threat to the nation.
What has been lacking in much coverage of protests over the past year has been a lack of appreciation (to put it mildly) and at times a complete denial of the reality of life for hundreds of thousands of families. Added to that is a gold-fish minded ignorance of the context of these protests: where they originate; what drives them; what their objective is; and how they are conducted.
Quite simply: people are fighting for their lives.
They are fighting for their lives, literally their survival, their rights, the lives and futures of their children, the betrayal of their parents, the destruction and sale of their country, their dreams of a life worth living in the land of their birth.
Politics is a gameshow. The players compete for pay, pension and perks. They play with peoples lives. The rules are simple: anything goes as long as their power, position and pals are protected. They lie, they cheat, they embezzle, they steal, they abuse. They act with an attitude of absolute impunity in the belief that they have unquestionable authority and entitlement to their position, pissing on the very people that put them there. They say and do as they please safe in the knowledge that the media and the judiciary are their allies and co-conspirators.
This government have told the people of Ireland to hold out their hands so that they can handcuff them and their children into perpetual debt slavery in the name of the EU, the financial markets and the ECB/IMF... and many have accepted these chains without resistance.
This is the injustice of Ireland's pseudo-democracy. The is what pricks the conscience of intelligent people.
If you can't understand or don't accept that it's because your conscience draws a line so far away from what challenges the establishment that they don't see you, hear you or even know you exist.
Some of us draw our line on their doorstep. They see us, they hear us, they know us by name ... and still they ignore us.
That's why some people dare to cross the line.
A political system that is unjust is not an immovable object. It just takes an unstoppable
force to move it. That force is the people of Ireland - arisen.
Have the water meter protests gone too far? Are they an affront to democracy? Have the water meter protesters damaged the popular mass movement against Irish Water and the austerity water charges?
What drives a person to act in such a way as to impede another from carrying out their job? to protest in a manner some might find aggressive or intimidating? to shout remarks that some would find unacceptable or offensive?
The delicate balance between Conscience and Injustice.
Whatever your opinion on how the country came to a point of financial crisis, either by negligent regulation, wanton greed, bank corruption, lack of political foresight or any other cause, we are where we are. No doubt future students of history and economics will be writing theses on the Rise of the Tiger and its eventual demise, but at the present moment in toime (as Kenny Cunningham would say), we have to live in circumstances that make ordinary daily life extremely difficult.
In 2015, families are experiencing pretty much the same quality of life that their parents and grand parents experienced in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many have levels of income that require every penny to be budgeted with the book-keeping skills of Ebenezer Scrooge: juggling between food, heat, rent, electricity, clothes and other household bills. Poverty levels have increased to the pint where 31% of the population are living in deprivation compared to 12% in 2007.
A UNICEF report last year found that Ireland ranked 37 out of 41 in a league table of child poverty in Western countries. Homlessness is increasing daily as more and more families are losing their homes to the banks that were bailed out.
You know the rest.
Most people who are now protesting have likely never protested or been involved in any political activity before in their lives. What has ignited a spark in them to mobilise is their conscience. It prevents them from accepting that the responsibility for getting the country out of its current mess has been nailed to their backs when they had no hand or part in the creation of it.
Their conscience prevents them from accepting that they should contribute € 9,000 each to the cost of the European banking crisis while he average cost of the crash across all European nations is € 192 per head. Germans have been the next hardest hit but each German still only pays € 491 per person. The Irish cost also does NOT include € 18 BILLION raided from the National Pension Fund to bail out insolvent banks...
When you have small children, still in primary school, it is absolutely unconscienable that they have a debt (somebody elses debt!) to pay off before they begin their lives. Indeed children born in maternity wards across the country in this decade will have a debt of € 9,000 each to pay off before they've drawn their first breath.
If this situation is acceptable to you, then your priorities, your humanity, your conscience and even your national pride should be re-examined with immediate haste. If you are prepared to allow this situation to exist without any objection then you are willing to accept the shackles of debt like a beaten-down slave.
If your conscience does not allow you to find this acceptable then you are on the first steps to understanding how protesters can initially find the conviction to take to the streets and ultimately arrive at a point of such desperation as to become more vocal, more active, more inflamed and potentially more 'militant'.
It is your conscience that draws the line where your protest ends, be it venting on social media, writing stern emails to TDs, marching on the streets, obstructing social and economic policy that you deem to be unjust.
The removal of medical cards from children with serious illness and life threatening disease. THe removal of SNA support for children with learning disabilities. The indifference to groups like the people of Priory Hall. The lip-service-concern for homelessness only passingly acknowledged following the death of Jonathan Corrie. The daily suffering of hundreds of people on hospital trollies across the country. The cynical attempt to dismantle the political system and hijack democracy with the Seanad referendum. Numerous cuts to public services and newly dreamt-up ways to extract money from working families have caused immeasurable distress, the effects of which are visible in protest action now and may result in severe long-lasting implications for men, women and children in the future.
What decides whether you write a letter to a TD, vote for particular candidate, take part in a march, stand with placard, occupy a constituency office or bank, attend a meeting, create a facebook page or stand in a hole while a water meter is being installed is a matter of personal conscience.
None of the jailed protesters have been jailed for committing a crime. No law has been broken, A court order has been breached but as better men than us have said:
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
― Howard Zinn“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”
― Martin Luther King Jr.“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”
― Mahatma Gandhi,“If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it?”
― Michel Templet“Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public's acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it...
In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.”
― Howard Zinn,
“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it.” ― Albert Einstein
The "behaviour" of ALL the water meter protests has unequivocally demonstrated that peoples' consciences have been ignited while at the same time there is an amazing and inspiring respect for human rights and property. In Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece, the countries worst hit by the Eurobank crash and the effects of austerity policy, there have been huge demonstrations which HAVE disintegrated into violent conflict. Private and public property has been destroyed, cars have been burned out, running battles with armed police and military forces have happened, rubber bullets have been fired into crowds and lives have been put at great risk.
Nothing like that has happened here as protesters continue to show intelligent, mature restraint and consciousness towards others. At the same time the Garda Siochana have demonstrated an eagerness to launch themselves into situations to either provoke violence among protesters (the Dec 10th O'Connell Bridge charge) or use protests as an opportunity to unleash their own psychotic lust for confrontation. The authorities and media have seized on every minor incident like a Minister "trapped" in the comfort of a fifty thousand euro state limousine to portray peaceful non-violent demonstrators as akin to ISIS terrorists or some other threat to the nation.
What has been lacking in much coverage of protests over the past year has been a lack of appreciation (to put it mildly) and at times a complete denial of the reality of life for hundreds of thousands of families. Added to that is a gold-fish minded ignorance of the context of these protests: where they originate; what drives them; what their objective is; and how they are conducted.
Quite simply: people are fighting for their lives.
They are fighting for their lives, literally their survival, their rights, the lives and futures of their children, the betrayal of their parents, the destruction and sale of their country, their dreams of a life worth living in the land of their birth.
Politics is a gameshow. The players compete for pay, pension and perks. They play with peoples lives. The rules are simple: anything goes as long as their power, position and pals are protected. They lie, they cheat, they embezzle, they steal, they abuse. They act with an attitude of absolute impunity in the belief that they have unquestionable authority and entitlement to their position, pissing on the very people that put them there. They say and do as they please safe in the knowledge that the media and the judiciary are their allies and co-conspirators.
This government have told the people of Ireland to hold out their hands so that they can handcuff them and their children into perpetual debt slavery in the name of the EU, the financial markets and the ECB/IMF... and many have accepted these chains without resistance.
This is the injustice of Ireland's pseudo-democracy. The is what pricks the conscience of intelligent people.
If you can't understand or don't accept that it's because your conscience draws a line so far away from what challenges the establishment that they don't see you, hear you or even know you exist.
Some of us draw our line on their doorstep. They see us, they hear us, they know us by name ... and still they ignore us.
That's why some people dare to cross the line.
A political system that is unjust is not an immovable object. It just takes an unstoppable
force to move it. That force is the people of Ireland - arisen.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
The President Has No Right to Respect!
Bet that got your attention!
"STORY OF THE WEEK!" (as many of the excellent CUT BACKS videos used to begin ... wish they were still being produced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPqkq-J3bTA
The story of the week last week was: RESPECT.
A Dublin man was alleged to have insulted, offended and disrespected President of Ireland Michael D Higgins.
Well, the simple fact is that President Higgins has no right to respect. No man has.
Respect is not a right.
Free speech is a right.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny travelled to Paris just a few weeks ago to stand with heads of government in defence of the RIGHT of free speech and in SUPPORT of a French publication which offends many muslim people of the Nation of Islam. This week Enda Kenny did a complete "volte face" (having picked up a bit of the lingo apparently) and was outraged at an Irish citizen's comments aimed at his country's President.
President Higgins may be ENTITLED to respect, but he has no RIGHT to it. Respect is an entitlement, but first it has to be earned. Michael D Higgins has spent his entire political career championing human rights and social justice, both at home and around the world, and is absolutely and unquestionably entitled to respect for doing so. But when his own people, whom he represents as the nation's President, are in their hour of greatest need for many many years, he has remained silent.
Ireland is a country bound in tax and debt slavery, entirely thanks to a lazy, corrupt, self-serving political elite, bought by global multinationals and a predatory banking system. Enda Kenny's Fine Gael (and Joan Burton's Labour) did not "inherit" a crisis. They were totally complicit in what has happened in Ireland. They sat across the house in Dáil Eireann and enjoyed their position as first class passengers on the runaway gravy train.
Throughout the tiger years NOBODY in Fine Gael or Labour were warning of the unsustainability of the construction driven economy which was building nothing but a house of cards. And neither can they claim "nobody else was" because there were political commentators, financial experts and even credible Irish economists who tried hard to sound the alarm bells. Their voices were heard and ignored ... dismissed as nay-sayers and prophets of doom.
The outrage at "m1dj3t-gate" is farcical. Of course nobody believes that politicians are actually losing sleep over it but it has been headlined as "an attack on democracy". What they are actually saying is "sit down, shut up and bow to your masters!" Can their arrogance, self-righteousness, elitist mentality, psychopathic mindest be any clearer.
No one can tell one man that he has to respect another. THAT'S! what fascists do ... Mr. Hayes. YOU are the real threat to democracy.
And that is what has happened to the psyche of the Irish people over generations. I've written this before (bloglink) but it bears revisiting.
Our politicians, lead by Kenny, Varadkar and Hayes (both donning their armour for a not-too-distant leadership contest) are demanding that the President be shown respect. Well for my part I am happy to show any man the same respect that he shows me.
Two years ago this week I sent a letter by registered post to Enda Kenny asking important questions about the existence of company named "An Taoiseach", seemingly registered off-shore with an address at Mr Kenny's constituency office. the letter. Two years on and Mr Kenny has refused to show me the respect of a response... Why should I show him any respect?
RIGHTS are ABSOLUTE. Even rights that are denied are not extinguished.
If respect was a RIGHT then it would not be something that could be lost. Respect is an entitlement that is earned and it can be lost.
President Higgins has lost the respect of a lot of Irish citizens - even those who voted for him. It now turns out that the principles on which he has based his own political ideology do not apply to the citizens of Ireland.
The good news is that he can earn it back. That's up to him. A man of honour would do the right thing.
"STORY OF THE WEEK!" (as many of the excellent CUT BACKS videos used to begin ... wish they were still being produced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPqkq-J3bTA
The story of the week last week was: RESPECT.
A Dublin man was alleged to have insulted, offended and disrespected President of Ireland Michael D Higgins.
Well, the simple fact is that President Higgins has no right to respect. No man has.
Respect is not a right.
Free speech is a right.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny travelled to Paris just a few weeks ago to stand with heads of government in defence of the RIGHT of free speech and in SUPPORT of a French publication which offends many muslim people of the Nation of Islam. This week Enda Kenny did a complete "volte face" (having picked up a bit of the lingo apparently) and was outraged at an Irish citizen's comments aimed at his country's President.
President Higgins may be ENTITLED to respect, but he has no RIGHT to it. Respect is an entitlement, but first it has to be earned. Michael D Higgins has spent his entire political career championing human rights and social justice, both at home and around the world, and is absolutely and unquestionably entitled to respect for doing so. But when his own people, whom he represents as the nation's President, are in their hour of greatest need for many many years, he has remained silent.
Ireland is a country bound in tax and debt slavery, entirely thanks to a lazy, corrupt, self-serving political elite, bought by global multinationals and a predatory banking system. Enda Kenny's Fine Gael (and Joan Burton's Labour) did not "inherit" a crisis. They were totally complicit in what has happened in Ireland. They sat across the house in Dáil Eireann and enjoyed their position as first class passengers on the runaway gravy train.
Throughout the tiger years NOBODY in Fine Gael or Labour were warning of the unsustainability of the construction driven economy which was building nothing but a house of cards. And neither can they claim "nobody else was" because there were political commentators, financial experts and even credible Irish economists who tried hard to sound the alarm bells. Their voices were heard and ignored ... dismissed as nay-sayers and prophets of doom.
The outrage at "m1dj3t-gate" is farcical. Of course nobody believes that politicians are actually losing sleep over it but it has been headlined as "an attack on democracy". What they are actually saying is "sit down, shut up and bow to your masters!" Can their arrogance, self-righteousness, elitist mentality, psychopathic mindest be any clearer.
No one can tell one man that he has to respect another. THAT'S! what fascists do ... Mr. Hayes. YOU are the real threat to democracy.
And that is what has happened to the psyche of the Irish people over generations. I've written this before (bloglink) but it bears revisiting.
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 and Magistrate.Respect must also be mutual. If not mutual then it is not respect! It is the "respect" of a slave for his master. It is the "respect" of a peasant for a king. What
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.
Our politicians, lead by Kenny, Varadkar and Hayes (both donning their armour for a not-too-distant leadership contest) are demanding that the President be shown respect. Well for my part I am happy to show any man the same respect that he shows me.
Two years ago this week I sent a letter by registered post to Enda Kenny asking important questions about the existence of company named "An Taoiseach", seemingly registered off-shore with an address at Mr Kenny's constituency office. the letter. Two years on and Mr Kenny has refused to show me the respect of a response... Why should I show him any respect?
RIGHTS are ABSOLUTE. Even rights that are denied are not extinguished.
If respect was a RIGHT then it would not be something that could be lost. Respect is an entitlement that is earned and it can be lost.
President Higgins has lost the respect of a lot of Irish citizens - even those who voted for him. It now turns out that the principles on which he has based his own political ideology do not apply to the citizens of Ireland.
The good news is that he can earn it back. That's up to him. A man of honour would do the right thing.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
The Kenny Government and Trevelyan Social Policy - Ireland's Second Holocaust
I recently read Tim Pat Coogan's book The Famine Plot
(http://www.timpatcoogan.com/books/famine_plot.htm)
In his book Coogan describes the impact that British government policy had on the period of The Great Hunger in Ireland.
Successive legislation and measures taken to address the potato famine tragedy only exacerbated the problem exponentially, resulting in what the author refers to as a "biblical" period in Irish history.
In his introduction Coogan writes:
Coogan's analysis is born out by the events which are catalogued in his work.
What Coogan reveals is that the British government's actions reflected some important features which are mirrored in the actions of this Fine Gael / Labour government miserably attempting to deal with the current financial crisis which threatens to become Ireland's second holocaust: the destruction of Irish society and the suffering of generations of innocent Irish men, women and children.
The British government viewed the famine disaster as PROVIDENCE. It was God's punishment of the Irish for their perceived ignorance, their barbarism, and their inherent laziness. The people were viewed as backward peasants who spent their time having sex! The population was in excess of 8 million and the famine was God's solution to overpopulation and underproductivity.
To the British aristocracy the famine was, literally, a God-send. It removed millions of people from the land, allowing landlords to consolidate land into larger, more productive holdings capable of profitable, new industrial farming practice.
When the government came to impose measures to address the suffering of the people, their focus was on capitalising on the opportunity to achieve those goals. Welfare efforts such as the work houses and the soup kitchens were made as restrictive as possible to ensure that as many people as possible were excluded from the schemes. The philosophy was that if people could not access government welfare they would be forced to depend on themselves: seek work in order to improve their situation or emigrate to find a life elsewhere.
One of the saddest aspects of the famine tragedy was the British government's religious adherence to the tenets of economis Adam Smith who promoted the theory of the Free Market. Food, what there was, was available to the people but at market prices. Corn, which was largely inedible, was bought by Prime Minister Robert Peel to supplement food supplies but its supply was controlled so as not to disrupt the market price.
The government also maintained the absolute autonomy of landlords to
conduct their affairs with impunity, denying the rights of the people -
rights which in England were upheld. Landlords evicted families into
the cold Irish winter year after year under the flimsiest premise,
condemning them to almost certain death. To force families out of the their homes the houses had their roofs torn down and walls destroyed to prevent the destitute from even seeking some degree of shelter from the elements.
The British aristocracy, many of them large landowners in Ireland, viewed the Irish people as a class even lower than the lower classes in England. People were not entitled to expect anything other than the life they had been born into. If starvation or emgration was their fate then so be it.
Welfare support was designed to help only those who qualified ... and qualification was made as difficult as possible. And those that qualified would only be given food within the walls of the work houses. It was illegal to provide food or assistance to those outside the work house.
Conditions inside the work house were designed to make it so uninhabitable that people would prefer to take their chances outside in the bleak, harsh countryside rather than enter the work houses. The shelters were so overcrowded and badly maintained that disease spread quickly, making the work houses no more safe than the countryside where thousands were dying by the roadsides daily.
In 2015 the Fine Gael / Labour government under Enda Kenny are "managing" the current economic crisis with the same approach as the Peel and Lord John Russel's British government in famine Ireland.
In 2012 Enda Kenny addressed the political and financial elite of Europe at Davos in Switzerland and without any sense of irony and without batting an eyelid laid the blame for Ireland's woes squarely on the shoulders of the Irish people. At least when Charlie Haughey spoke to the nation in 1980 he included himself in the comment "WE are living way beyond our means". As we know, he was himself guilty of this but at least he had the sense to represent himself as one of the people. In Davos, Kenny set himself apart from the people. Sitting comfortably amongst his multi-millionaire political pals he stretched his arm out and pointed back at Ireland, "the (Irish) people went mad borrowing".
Kenny was saying what the British government of Russell and Charles Trevelyan believed: the people got what they deserved ... they were reaping what they had sowed. Although Trevelyan was not a member of the British cabinet, he was Assistant Secretary to the Treasury and by Coogan's account, was by far the driving force in British policy maing at the time of the famine, even acting with absolute autonomy by publishing commentary in the British press. He was immortalised in Pete St. John's anthem The Fields of Athenry. Kenny has been immortalised for future generations in Stephen Murphy's poem Dear Enda.
Like the British government, his Irish government placed the landlords, the property owners, as the most important people in the country. In the Land and Conveyancing Reform Act 2013, Kenny let the landlords, the mortgage companies and property owners (who were the real villains in the story) off the leash, giving them impunity to evict and repossess homes from Irish families. Thankfully for those in need of help and support, which is not forthcoming from the State, bodies like The Hub and the National Land League have been (re)established to protect the vulnerable.
The rights of the landlords were to absolutely outweigh the rights of the people. Even families with as little as one month's arrears in their mortgage payments (and I know this personally) could be harassed, bullied and evicted to protect the investments of billion euro investment firms.
This government's social welfare policy also repeats the immoral approach as the British government in the mid 19th century. Welfare is made increasingly difficult to access. The criteria for qualification of medical cards has been made drastically more stringent. Children and elderly people, even with terminal or life threatening illnesses, many suffering great pain, are no longer entitled to the medical care that makes their lives bearable.
Welfare has been cut to extreme levels. While it may be argued to have become too generous in the previous decades when times were good, it is now, when times are hardest, that it is needed the most. It should not be reduced in bad times, but retained to be reviewed at a later time when circumstances for those most in need are improved.
Schemes such as JobBridge are the modern day equivalent of the famine work houses - a solution so unpalatable as to be the last desperate resort of an impoverished workforce. It is touted as something positive but it is the enforced slavery of the disenfranchised. The hardship caused by austerity and the pretense at social protection also fuels emigration. An entire generation of our best and brightest, the very people that could drive the economy out of recession, are taking to the coffin ships again, leaving family, friends, homes and even jobs behind to search for a humane standard of living elsewhere.
And the (financial) markets that were the ground where the blight of this economic famine festered and flourished are held sacrosanct. Banks that were insolvent, poisonous and a cancer on the economy were deemded "too big to fail". Their at best immoral behaviour and at worst criminal manipulation of finance and flagrant disregard for social responsibility and the regulations under which they were supposed to operate have been whitewashed by a political system complicit in the whole affair.
The same systems, structures, players and bodies that were culpable in the 2008 crash have been bailed out and are now poised to exploit the struggling populace for even more profit.
What is most despicable about Enda Kenny's government is their adoption of an air of entitlement and impunity that can only be seen in the British House of Lords. Kenny has parroted his precious mandate to act as Ireland's dictator many times since taking office. Except he is now treating his "democratic mandate" almost as a divine right to act as he and the other three horsemen (well two horsemen and Lady Godiva) of the unconstitutional EMC deem fit. In his ill-fated, unilateral attempt to abolish the constitutional body of the Seanad he refused to engage in any public debate to defend, justify or even explain his position and now, with an unprecedented opportunity to put his government's case to the people in the public debates of Vincent Browne's Tonight forum, his cowardice has become Fine Gael party policy ... when we are on the brink of a general election campaign!
Government policy in 2015 is earily echoing the policy of British government in famine Ireland.
Irish life was fundamentally decimated in the nineteenth century not by the failure of a several years of single vegetable crop but by the total disconnect of a government that did not understand the problems of the people and acted with a total absence of humanity in dealing with them. Irish life in the 21st century is being decimated by exactly the same inhumanity.
Paul Madden
(http://www.timpatcoogan.com/books/famine_plot.htm)
In his book Coogan describes the impact that British government policy had on the period of The Great Hunger in Ireland.
Successive legislation and measures taken to address the potato famine tragedy only exacerbated the problem exponentially, resulting in what the author refers to as a "biblical" period in Irish history.
In his introduction Coogan writes:
“As this is written, Ireland, through the corruption, incompetence and profligacy of the then governing Fianna Fail party, has lost its economic sovereignty. …a highly disturbing similarity between the famine era and the present can be seen in the existence of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) in Dublin, which takes the assets of recession victims and, after what is euphemistically termed a “haircut”, sells these on to well-pursed new owners at greatly reduced prices.
This was the same procedure dictated by the Encumbered Estates Act during the Famine, whereby land obtained from distressed owners was sold on to wealthy purchasers with the intention of creating larger holdings and a more stable rural economy. The famine bell does not merely toll for those who died during the nineteenth century; it has resonance for those who live in the twenty-first.”
Coogan's analysis is born out by the events which are catalogued in his work.
What Coogan reveals is that the British government's actions reflected some important features which are mirrored in the actions of this Fine Gael / Labour government miserably attempting to deal with the current financial crisis which threatens to become Ireland's second holocaust: the destruction of Irish society and the suffering of generations of innocent Irish men, women and children.
The British government viewed the famine disaster as PROVIDENCE. It was God's punishment of the Irish for their perceived ignorance, their barbarism, and their inherent laziness. The people were viewed as backward peasants who spent their time having sex! The population was in excess of 8 million and the famine was God's solution to overpopulation and underproductivity.
To the British aristocracy the famine was, literally, a God-send. It removed millions of people from the land, allowing landlords to consolidate land into larger, more productive holdings capable of profitable, new industrial farming practice.
When the government came to impose measures to address the suffering of the people, their focus was on capitalising on the opportunity to achieve those goals. Welfare efforts such as the work houses and the soup kitchens were made as restrictive as possible to ensure that as many people as possible were excluded from the schemes. The philosophy was that if people could not access government welfare they would be forced to depend on themselves: seek work in order to improve their situation or emigrate to find a life elsewhere.
One of the saddest aspects of the famine tragedy was the British government's religious adherence to the tenets of economis Adam Smith who promoted the theory of the Free Market. Food, what there was, was available to the people but at market prices. Corn, which was largely inedible, was bought by Prime Minister Robert Peel to supplement food supplies but its supply was controlled so as not to disrupt the market price.
 |
| Famine Ireland - people defend themselves from unlawful eviction |
 |
| homes were torn down to prevent the destitute from sheltering even in mid-winter |
Welfare support was designed to help only those who qualified ... and qualification was made as difficult as possible. And those that qualified would only be given food within the walls of the work houses. It was illegal to provide food or assistance to those outside the work house.
Conditions inside the work house were designed to make it so uninhabitable that people would prefer to take their chances outside in the bleak, harsh countryside rather than enter the work houses. The shelters were so overcrowded and badly maintained that disease spread quickly, making the work houses no more safe than the countryside where thousands were dying by the roadsides daily.
In 2015 the Fine Gael / Labour government under Enda Kenny are "managing" the current economic crisis with the same approach as the Peel and Lord John Russel's British government in famine Ireland.
In 2012 Enda Kenny addressed the political and financial elite of Europe at Davos in Switzerland and without any sense of irony and without batting an eyelid laid the blame for Ireland's woes squarely on the shoulders of the Irish people. At least when Charlie Haughey spoke to the nation in 1980 he included himself in the comment "WE are living way beyond our means". As we know, he was himself guilty of this but at least he had the sense to represent himself as one of the people. In Davos, Kenny set himself apart from the people. Sitting comfortably amongst his multi-millionaire political pals he stretched his arm out and pointed back at Ireland, "the (Irish) people went mad borrowing".
Kenny was saying what the British government of Russell and Charles Trevelyan believed: the people got what they deserved ... they were reaping what they had sowed. Although Trevelyan was not a member of the British cabinet, he was Assistant Secretary to the Treasury and by Coogan's account, was by far the driving force in British policy maing at the time of the famine, even acting with absolute autonomy by publishing commentary in the British press. He was immortalised in Pete St. John's anthem The Fields of Athenry. Kenny has been immortalised for future generations in Stephen Murphy's poem Dear Enda.
 | |
| Anti-eviction campaigners demonstrate against evictions 2015 |
 |
| 2015 - families defend their constituional rights - rights denied by the State |
The rights of the landlords were to absolutely outweigh the rights of the people. Even families with as little as one month's arrears in their mortgage payments (and I know this personally) could be harassed, bullied and evicted to protect the investments of billion euro investment firms.
This government's social welfare policy also repeats the immoral approach as the British government in the mid 19th century. Welfare is made increasingly difficult to access. The criteria for qualification of medical cards has been made drastically more stringent. Children and elderly people, even with terminal or life threatening illnesses, many suffering great pain, are no longer entitled to the medical care that makes their lives bearable.
Welfare has been cut to extreme levels. While it may be argued to have become too generous in the previous decades when times were good, it is now, when times are hardest, that it is needed the most. It should not be reduced in bad times, but retained to be reviewed at a later time when circumstances for those most in need are improved.
Schemes such as JobBridge are the modern day equivalent of the famine work houses - a solution so unpalatable as to be the last desperate resort of an impoverished workforce. It is touted as something positive but it is the enforced slavery of the disenfranchised. The hardship caused by austerity and the pretense at social protection also fuels emigration. An entire generation of our best and brightest, the very people that could drive the economy out of recession, are taking to the coffin ships again, leaving family, friends, homes and even jobs behind to search for a humane standard of living elsewhere.
And the (financial) markets that were the ground where the blight of this economic famine festered and flourished are held sacrosanct. Banks that were insolvent, poisonous and a cancer on the economy were deemded "too big to fail". Their at best immoral behaviour and at worst criminal manipulation of finance and flagrant disregard for social responsibility and the regulations under which they were supposed to operate have been whitewashed by a political system complicit in the whole affair.
The same systems, structures, players and bodies that were culpable in the 2008 crash have been bailed out and are now poised to exploit the struggling populace for even more profit.
What is most despicable about Enda Kenny's government is their adoption of an air of entitlement and impunity that can only be seen in the British House of Lords. Kenny has parroted his precious mandate to act as Ireland's dictator many times since taking office. Except he is now treating his "democratic mandate" almost as a divine right to act as he and the other three horsemen (well two horsemen and Lady Godiva) of the unconstitutional EMC deem fit. In his ill-fated, unilateral attempt to abolish the constitutional body of the Seanad he refused to engage in any public debate to defend, justify or even explain his position and now, with an unprecedented opportunity to put his government's case to the people in the public debates of Vincent Browne's Tonight forum, his cowardice has become Fine Gael party policy ... when we are on the brink of a general election campaign!
Government policy in 2015 is earily echoing the policy of British government in famine Ireland.
Irish life was fundamentally decimated in the nineteenth century not by the failure of a several years of single vegetable crop but by the total disconnect of a government that did not understand the problems of the people and acted with a total absence of humanity in dealing with them. Irish life in the 21st century is being decimated by exactly the same inhumanity.
Paul Madden
A Plea For More Humanity In Social Policy - I Am Not A Jigsaw Piece
To: michael.noonan@oireachtas.ie
Cc: lettersed@irishtimes.com, david.norris@oireachtas.ie, clare.daly@oireachtas.ie, mattie.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie
It was with measured optimism that I read Dr. Sean Healy's article in the Irish Times of Friday Jan 23rd.
See here: http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/plans-for-social-dialogue-must-deal-with-needs-of-most-vulnerable-before-tax-and-pay-1.2075855
"One of the major lessons to be learned from Ireland’s experience, according to Michael Noonan (above with IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde and Minister for Public Expenditure, Brendan Howlin), was that all future multi-annual programmes should, from the very beginning, address the social consequences of the policies being proposed and ensure that these impacts were addressed"
I hope most sincerely that you believe that, Minister as my experience over the past two years has shown me that this government and you in particular as Minister for Finance, have acted with a noted disregard for the real impacts of austerity.
I am not going to debate the necessity or otherwise of austerity budgets, but the focus of the last two budgets has been on the bottom line of budgetary policy. The role of government has been reduced to four people sitting around a well stocked, comfortable boardroom turning socio-economic science into an accounting exercise. The Economic Management Committee have taken the lives of the 4.5 million citizens and used them as pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that gets smaller and smaller every year, and the pieces that get thrown away may be insignificant to you, but they are important pieces in the picture of 2015 Ireland.
Politics is supposed to be about the people, and politicians are supposed to be public servants. What we have witnessed in this government, and in previous governments to be fair, is that politics is about self service.
The evidence continues to come out, even after endless commentaries about transparency, reform and the end of cronyism. Barely a day goes by without the political class proving its inability to change. While the underlying elitism and sense of entitlement continues to allow politicians to justify their disconnectedness from their constituents there can be no change in the political landscape. What that means for the future is a continued rise in the frustration of the disenfranchised from their supposed representatives.
Dr. Healy states:
"The failure to take an integrated approach meant that while the fiscal situation has improved dramatically and the debt/GDP ratio is falling, poverty has also increased.
Though
the poverty line has fallen in the period since 2008, the number of
people experiencing poverty has increased substantially.
The
social services and infrastructure on which people depend, such as
health and housing, are not meeting the basic requirements people need
if they are to live life with dignity.
Now that
the economy is beginning to improve and some additional resources are
likely to be available, Government is proposing to begin a process of
social dialogue as it prepares a multiannual plan for Ireland’s
development."
Since
the 15th of October 2013 I have written numerous emails, as have many
other parents in my situation, to try and impress upon you the critical
reality of the impacts of your budgetary measures.
I
have been separated from my children's mother for 13 years. In all
that time I have contributed more than 65% of my income in maintenance
... for nine of those years voluntarily. I have tried my best to
alleviate at least the financial impact on my family of the breakup. My
ex has worked hard too and our combined efforts have meant that the
mortgage on the family home has not fallen into arrears and we have
provided some measure of stability in the lives of our children.
In
2013 my personal income after maintenance was € 218 a week. The adult
poverty line in Ireland is € 210 a week. In the 2013 budget the removal
of the Single Parent Tax Credit meant my personal income was reduced to
€ 172 a week. Your response to this was to say that single fathers (I
am generalising) could go back into family court to seek adjustments in
their maintenance. You therefore were NOT protecting the single mothers
or our children from the impact of this cut ... we were advised simply
to pass it on!
My
income having reduced to less than an unemployed person on the dole
meant I was forced to go back to court to seek such an adjustment. I
made a proposal to the court to avail of my legal entitlements under the
tax code to recover a large portion of what I had lost and at the same
time continue to pay an UNDIMINISHED level of maintenance. The courts
refused to afford me this entitlement: protecting the tax you had taken
from me and penalising me in regard to the amount of income tax I am
required to pay. Maintenance WAS reduced ... thus passing on the impact
of the tax cut to my children's mother while leaving me with an income
of € 179 a week. The court also refused to follow the Department of
Justice's OWN guidelines on Reasonable Living Expenses which state that
my income should be € 234 a week!
If
the government now, almost four years after coming to office, is truly
committed to addressing the IMPACT of social policy then I must demand
that the impact of this particular cut should be addressed with utmost
priority. The removal of the Single Parent Credit for single fathers
has very seriously impacted on the lives of 78,000 men and much more
importantly their children.
Judge
Marie Baker, in a High Court ruling some months ago, very clearly
stated that single fathers can NOT be assessed without due regard to
their children, especially when they have regular contact and access to
the children. Your change has meant that in the eyes of the State, vis
the tax code, I am regarded as a single person with no dependent
children. My children have been "taken" from me. They are invisible to
the State in relation to me. They are GHOSTS in society, ripped from
their fathers BY THE STATE, which should be trying to encourage and
support fathers and their roles in the lives of their children.
Dr. Sean Healy says " If the social impacts of policies had been addressed from the very
beginning there would be far less anger and alienation among people
today".
In the past my submissions have been ignored, dismissed or at best responded to with press office rhetoric.
Words are cheap, Minister. Lives are not.
As
the government faces into the final year of its term in office I will
continue to ask for some acknowledgement of the impact of this single
issue on an important but invisible sector of society. The efforts of
fathers who live in poverty - and that is not an exaggeration - in order
to protect their children (and their ex-wives) from the worst ravages
of austerity should be recognised and supported by progressive
legislation that aims to secure families, in whatever format they exist,
and attempts to reintroduce some measure of humanity back into the
process of budgetary policy.
We are not jigsaw pieces. We are human beings. We are Irish men, women and children.
Sincerely
Are 'Gardai' on site at water meter installations actually Gardai?
| Sent: | 27 January 2015 12:27:04 |
| To: | mick.wallace@oireachtas.ie; david.norris@oireachtas.ie; clare.daly@oireachtas.ie ; joe.higgins@oireachtas.ie |
| Cc: | pressoffice@garda.ie; enda.kenny@oireachtas.ie ; lettersed@irishtimes.com |
Dear Members of the Oireachtas
I sent an email to An Taoiseach, the Garda Commissioner, Clare Daly and the Irish Times on December 5th raising my concerns as to whether Gardai who work under contract to private individuals or corporations are technically on duty as members of the Garda Siochana or are, in fact, private individuals with no powers of arrest or detention.
Following a large protest at the City West Hotel last evening where anti-water tax campaigners staged a demonstration at an event where K-Tech security, who contract with banks and sheriffs to evict people from their homes, were in attendance to provide security at the event, the questions are worth repeating.
Prior to the event K-Tech had taken an injunction through the courts against demonstrators gathering at the venue.
It was reported by people present that there were 3 Gardai in attendance at the demonstration.
Given that there was a judicial order in place and the demonstration was in opposition to the extremely emotive issue of evictions which have affected families with very small children and many elderly people, it would have been reasonable to expect a larger Garda presence to prevent any confrontations between campaigners and K-Tech personnel.
My inference is that Gardai were not present in larger numbers because they were ON DUTY in the service of the public and therefore on the State's clock. Most of the campaigners present have regularly experienced Garda representation of up to 30 Gardai in attendance at water meter installations being conducted by GMC Sierra and other contractors. Again the implication is that Mr Denis O'Brien is paying Gardai as private security to "ACT" as Gardai when in fact they are private individuals on paid private work.
I would like to have an answer from the Govt and the Garda Commissioner on the matter of when Gardai are and are not on official state duty as Gardai Siochana and when they are on non-official non-state OFF-duty work as private security contracted by private individuals or corporate interests.
It is extremely important for the citizens to be made aware of this matter so that their constitutional rights are NOT being unlawfully abused.
It is particularly important in cases where members of the public have been "arrested", taken in Garda vehicles to Garda stations and detained for periods from an hour to overnight or longer.
If Gardai operating under private contract are enforcing powers which they ONLY have as public servants, wearing the uniform to give the impression of being on-duty, using public garda vehicles for this private security work and arresting and detaining members of the public WITHOUT AUTHORITY then this activity HAS TO STOP!
I would be grateful for your assistance in pursuing the matter with the offices of the Taoiseach and the Garda Siochana.
Mr Kenny's continuing arrogance as evidenced by his refusal to answer to anyone, which has now become Fine Gael party policy in so far as they will not appear at nationally televised public debates, is testament to an attitude that it is beneath them to respond to the legitimate inquiries from the public, even on matters of constitutional and human rights.
I trust that you will afford me a little more respect.
I attach here below the original mail
Sincerely
Paul:Madden
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Published: https://www.fairsociety.ie/garda-siochana-work-for-profit-contracts/
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