Léargas

So, now we know. After months of trying to avoid a referendum on the austerity Treaty – the Fiscal Compact Treaty to the bureaucrats in Brussels – the Taoiseach and the Tanaiste slipped into the Dáil yesterday and told us that there would be a referendum. This blog wasn’t surprised. Sinn Féin had sought our own legal advice. We were told that a referendum was needed. Had the government tried to avoid its responsibilities on this we would have been taking it to court. It would have been nice to have had more notice about the announcement. The government was apparently told by the Attorney General at the Cabinet meeting that the treaty is a unique instrument outside the EU Treaty architecture and that on balance a referendum is needed to ratify it. But instead of sharing that information with opposition leaders and setting aside an adequate period of time in the Dáil for this matter to be discussed they phoned around the offices of the opposition leaders shortly before the announcemen...

Last year, as part of the agreed Programme for Government between Fine Gael and Labour, the two parties agreed to establish a Constitutional Convention to recommend constitutional reform. Since then this blog has raised this issue regularly in the Dáil with the Taoiseach. I have told him that the Irish diaspora must be represented in the Convention and that part of its agenda must be to discuss extending voting rights in Irish Presidential elections to the diaspora. In the course of these exchanges the Taoiseach undertook to consult with the opposition parties. He also agreed that the extension of the franchise in Presidential elections to citizens in the north would be part of the convention’s agenda. Despite frequent requests by me to hold the consultation with opposition parties and the Taoiseach’s repeated assurances that he would - no meetings were held. In an effort to assist this process I wrote to the Taoiseach on February 7th setting out Sinn Féin’s view of the convention and ...

It’s not often this blog gets a chance to step in for the Taoiseach and break news to the Dáil but it was that sort of morning. For those of you not familiar with the Dáil system we have Leaders Questions each Wednesday morning at 10.30. It’s an opportunity for myself and others to quiz Enda Kenny on what we believe to be an issue of importance. It had been my intention to use my two minutes for a question and one minute for a supplementary to raise the health crisis. Each day brings new reports of the impact of government cuts on the health service. On Wednesday morning the media was reporting a statement from the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine which revealed that the number of sick children awaiting admission to hospitals and waiting on trolleys has increased by almost 700% in three years. Many children spend longer than 12 hours on a trolley and in some cases more than 24 hours. Several days earlier the Health Service Executive also revealed that almost 60,000 patients – a...

There is an arrogance about this Fine Gael and Labour government, as there was with the last. They talk and think like economists. But unlike good economists who understand the connection between people and the economy, this government doesn’t look at the social consequences of its actions and policies. Do they care about what will happen to pensioners unable to keep their homes warm? Are they are at all interested in the efforts of lone parents to make ends meet on dwindling benefits? Do they worry about children going to school without a warm breakfast or the thousands of families who have had to give up their private health insurance and are now left to the mercies of a public health service in crisis? There is a fundamental disconnect which allows Fine Gael and Labour deputies in the Dáil to repeatedly vote for policies they know are hurting people and against alternative propositions which can work. The social consequences are all around them in the cuts to essential public servic...

At the start of the week the Taoiseach finally launched his ‘Jobs Action Plan’. Today this blog asked the Taoiseach to specify clearly the number of citizens he expects this plan will have taken off the live register by March, or June or September or by year’s end? He couldn’t answer the question. Why? Because the Taoiseach’s ‘Plan’ contains no new money to create jobs, and no meaningful targets to judge it by or to aim for. While I welcome the Governments renewed focus on the Jobs crisis and the Taoiseach’s decision to take personal responsibility for delivering on this plan, there is a serious flaw in the government’s approach to tackling the economic crisis and in particular the creation of jobs. This is because the government is locked into an austerity programme that is about cutting jobs and funding from the public sector, and is driving down growth through stealth taxes. Since the Government came to power a year ago there has been a consistent increase in the number of citizens ...

Last Friday was spent in the Boyne Valley Hotel in Drogheda where key leadership activists from all levels of Sinn Féin and from all parts of the island, Britain, and the USA came together to discuss the party’s strategy of building toward a united Ireland. This blog had the honour of opening the day’s proceedings before several keynote speakers set out the multiplicity of tasks before us. Martin McGuinness, Mary Lou McDonald, Caral Ní Chuilin and Lucilita Bhreatnach who has the onerous task of leading our uniting Ireland project, were among those taking part in the workshops and discussions. The ‘away day’ took place after a very successful conference in the Millennium Forum in Derry. Almost 1000 people, including a sizeable section of unionist opinion, attended that event. The Millennium conference was the sixth in a series that have attracted large numbers of people from every walk of life to capacity packed halls in Monaghan, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Newry and Derry. Uniting Ireland i...

In his television address on December 4th, just prior to the budget, the Taoiseach said: “I want to be the Taoiseach who retrieves Ireland’s economic sovereignty, and who leads a Government that will help our country to succeed.” Yet last Monday this same Taoiseach signed up to an austerity treaty that hands significant new powers over to the European Court of Justice and European Commission to impose economic policies on democratically elected governments and to impose heavy fines where they believe these policies have not been adhered to. How can he claim to be for restoring sovereignty while giving away important Irish fiscal and budgetary powers to unelected bureaucrats, and at the same time refusing the people their right to vote on an issue that will significantly affect their lives for years to come? The austerity treaty confers significant new powers on the European Commission and European Court of Justice to compel member states to alter their fiscal and budgetary policies or ...

Wee Harry was buried yesterday. Hundreds of his friends and comrades from all parts of the island and further afield came to pay their final respects to a good friend, a generous friend, a hero. Martin McGuinness paid a wonderful tribute to Harry earlier in the day at the mass that was celebrated by Fr. Matt Wallace. Grainne Holland gave fine renditions in Irish and English. Here’s some of what I said: “This is St. Brigid’s day, the celtic day, the first day of spring. St. Brigid was a mighty woman and it’s very appropriate because Harry had a great grá for the women in his life, and for Irish women in struggle. The big loss here is Kathy’s and I want to acknowledge her mother who is here as well. Harry called her granny. And other brothers and sisters of Kathy who are here also. Harry’s immediate family; his brother Tony the Master, Seamus, John and Joe and his sister Lily. And then Áine and Tommy and KC. And Máire and Kieran, Gabrielle and Harry óg; Ellen and Steve, Louise, Niall and...

Councillor Tomás Sharkey, Councillor Jim Loughran, mise agus Councillor Edel Corrigan Monday night was cold. Then that could be said of most nights recently. But it was especially sharp in Ravensdale, in the Cooley Mountains, on the border between south and north. Ravensdale is one of those idyllic places. It’s full of history and culture. A mix of mountain, forest, long walks and a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water. On the north by Carlingford Lough. To the east by the Irish Sea, and to the south by Dundalk Bay. I have been in and out of it for decades and I never tire of driving or walking its roads and lanes. And like many rural parts of the south many local residents depend on septic tanks to deal with sewage waste and are now facing additional costs and the possibility of significant bills for upgrading or replacing these systems. This blog wrote about this issue a few weeks ago. I return to it briefly because on Monday night over 100 people braved the cold and packed ...