Rearranging deck chairs will not save the country from sinking

So the Green Party claim to have agreed a new so-called ‘Programme for Government’. This new programme is a mixed bag of re-hashed existing policies, vague promises and is a pathetic attempt to cling onto power at any cost. Rearranging the deck chairs will not save this country from sinking. The Green Party had it within their power to pull the plug on plans to make ordinary working people pay for the economic recession through NAMA and the McCarthy report. They also failed to provide new policies aimed at getting people back to work and helping those most in need.

NAMA will cripple this country for a generation. Its effects will be seen year after year at December time as money is put aside at each budget to pay for this flawed scheme. The Green Party and this Government has no mandate for NAMA or the recommendations in the McCarthy Report and they must not be allowed force them through. Internal green party support is no substitute for support of the people. I have no doubt that if NAMA is put to the people it would be overwhelmingly rejected. Saturdays vote by Green Party members was a desperate exercise in self-preservation. Ultimately it will fail. Vague promises and a re-hashing of existing commitments will be soon forgotten as the Government plan for a crippling December budget. The Green Party had an opportunity to put the country ahead of the party. The choosing of the latter will be their eventual undoing.

Obama strange choice for Nobel Peace Prize

President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is a strange choice to say the least. I am a fan of Obama and I wish him well in his term as US President. However he has not done anything of substance to deserve such a prestigious prize. The prize was devalued for me when it was awarded to David Trimble at a time when he was refusing to take a risk for peace. The awarding of the prize to Obama is at best premature and at worst down right silly. Obama has given a lot of great speeches, has talked a lot about diplomacy and has certainly begun to heal the wounds of the Bush era but has done nothing of substance to earn this prize.

Divide and conquer tactics must not pay off

It is now official. After months of kite flying the Minister for Finance confirmed today that the public sector will be hit and hit hard in December’s budget. Expect to hear a lot about waste in the public sector, inflated salaries, Rolls Royce pensions and anything and everything designed to paint a picture of a bloated and inefficient public service. A clear attempt is being made to divide and conquer and to pit public and private sector workers against each other. This is dangerous as well as divisive and must not be allowed to happen.

I need to make it clear that I am all for cutting public spending where necessary. Indeed my party has put forward reasonable and practical proposals to government on how public spending can be curbed. However in doing so we must protect front line services and those on low and middle incomes. Contrary to the picture being painted most public sector employees are on modest incomes and many are on less then the average industrial wage. The Rolls Royce pensions we hear a lot about are reserved for a privileged few at the top.

Reform and cuts are necessary but they must start at the top. We also need to recognise that the public sector has already seen thousands of job losses as well as abolition of overtime and the introduction of pension and income levies. New and severe cuts as is anticipated will result in dire consequences. While it is the Government who are making the running on this issue they are being closely followed by those in Fine Gael. If these parties have their way expect to see savage cuts in public services and the loss of front line staff such as teachers, nurses and gaurds. Too borrow and twist a Fianna Fáil election slogan ‘a lot were done – we have more to do’. But only if we let them.

Sinn Féin forces O’ Donoghue’s resignation

Earlier today the four Sinn Féin TD’s called on the Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue to resign. They did so because his position was untenable. Labour and Fine Gael followed suit. He has eventually announced his resignation and rightly so. He must go further and pay back expenses which he unnecessarily claimed. However the point has to be made that this cannot be seen as the end. John O’Donoghue should not be a sacrificial lamb. His actions were a symptom of a much deeper problem in the Irish political system. The lavish and outrageous expenses he enjoyed are enjoyed by many in both houses of the Oireachtas. His resignation must herald a new beginning of accountability, transparency and proportionality when it comes to the spending of tax payer’s money.

There is much talk of the need for the banking system to be cleaned up. It is now time to clean up our political system once and for all. The entire system of salaries and expenses to elected representatives at every level must be overhauled. One resignation is not enough. There are many more John O’Donoghue’s and Rody Molloy’s. However at the end of the day it is the system which needs to change. All political parties must now commit themselves to achieving this and bring about a new era of transparency and accountability in Irish politics.

Junket John must go

Recent revelations surrounding the lavish spending habits of Ceann Comhairle John O’ Donoghue are an example of the same cavalier attitude to the spending of public money that became all-pervasive during the Celtic Tiger years. It is an area that I have highlighted time and again and have consistently called for change. A culture of unaccountability and a sense of entitlement prevailed and has not passed with the death of the Celtic Tiger. It must come to an end.

This culture is not confined to John O’Donoghue. The lavish expenses enjoyed by TD’s and Senators are obscene. Our local Oireachtas members between them have drawn down hundreds of thousands of Euro since the last General Election. Those at the top in some state and semi-state bodies are equally as culpable. I am sure what happened at FÁS is only the thin end of the wedge. The un-vouched nature of some expenses to councillors must also be tackled.

While being rightly outraged about recent revelations we must keep a sense of perspective. Reasonable expenses and travelling is required by elected representatives and others in public life. The key here is accountability, transparency and proportionality. All of the political parties must sit around the table and thrash out new guidelines for the spending of public money. However the cavalier attitude of John O’Donoghue has made his position as Ceann Comhairle untenable and he must resign.

Mixed feelings as I stood at the Brandenburg gate

I was catching a plane to Berlin early on Saturday morning as the early indications of the Lisbon result began to emerge. It looked like it was going to be a decisive yes vote. I arrived in Berlin in the late afternoon and joined hundreds of thousands of Berliners in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Berlin is a magnificent city rich in culture, heritage and history. As I stood looking up at the splendour of the gates and took in the history of this once divided city I did so with mixed emotions. It was great to be celebrating with the people of Berlin the unification of Germany but disappointing to hear of the official Lisbon result – two thirds in favour.

The result was unsurprising. The yes side had the weight of the entire establishment behind them not to mention most of the media. The treaty itself was presented as mere window dressing and its proponents skilfully turned it into a referendum on jobs and economic recovery. The result was always going to be a foregone conclusion. As the campaign dust settles we can now ponder on what it is we actually voted for. We have taken another step towards complete EU integration and the development of a European super state. We have given the EU more power, reduced our voting strength in key institutions, created a constitutional framework for the EU to act as a state on the International stage, lost our veto in key areas, given the EU power to significantly amend existing treaties without recourse to national parliaments or referendums, voted to reduce the size of the commission post 2014 and elevated competition rights over those of workers and public services. It felt ironic to be celebrating the ending of centralised power across Eastern Europe only to see history repeat itself once again. Only time will tell if this will be good or bad.

Social solidarity is necessary in the time ahead

I have given a lot of thought in recent times as to what type of society has emerged in Ireland as a consequence of the Celtic Tiger. Such analysis is important if we are to both work our way out of the current crisis and build a fairer society. Margaret Thatcher once famously declared that there is no such thing as community only individuals. Her Government fostered a dog-eat-dog mentality and worked against any notion of social solidarity. The welfare state had to be dismantled; public services privatised, small Government and low regulation was sacrosanct and massive wage differentials necessary to increase motivation. All ideas that underpinned Government policies here during the Celtic Tiger years and that has created a nation of individuals as opposed to a society.

Now that our economy has come crashing down around us and our public finances are in freefall the failure of these policies are obvious. People are becoming more and more irritated at the unjust and unfair nature of our society. Golden handshakes, outrageous expenses and the immoral salaries of bankers, business executives and some at the top of the public sector is causing understandable consternation among those feeling the pain of the current crisis. So how do we get out of this mess and what kind of new patriotism do we need?

We need a new commitment to social solidarity. We need to move back to being a nation of communities and not individuals. Thatcherist policies need to be given a decent burial. In November the trade union movement is mobilising for a national day of action designed to force the Government’s hand in advance of an expected painful budget. These are mostly the same trade unions, with notable exceptions, that acquiesced to Government policies through successive partnership agreements that increased wage differentials and did nothing to tackle poverty. There is one certainty about what needs to happen in the future – the need to sort out our public finances. This will require a combination of tax increases, cuts in public spending and fresh policies to grow the economy. To get back to what I was advocating earlier – social solidarity – all of this needs to happen with an explicit commitment to protect the most vulnerable, the unemployed and those on low pay.