1) You are what you tweet – the Gillian McKeith debacle. Yes midway through the year, we were treated to a rather scrumptious story from the twittersphere. A spat had developed between nutritionist Gillian McKeith and Bad Science guy Ben Goldacre. In what can only be referred to as an alleged sequence of misdemeanours, tweets were sent that accused Ben Goldacre of telling lies. Then suddenly the twittersphere went nuts, the topic was trending and retweets were rife. Once the story hit the big time, the tweets from the Gillian McKeith entitled account disappeared (i.e. were deleted) and the world’s worst cover up was attempted including the statement that the account was not Gillian’s despite several official tweets and logos, and prior printed publications suggesting otherwise. Ladies and gentlemen – how not to use Twitter!

2) Dublin Metro despite all needs. Yes, I’ve been banging on about this for years now but it’s still as valid an argument as ever in my opinion. I was delighted earlier in the year, to see that Kevin Myers has joined my band wagon of sense by slamming the metro in one of his columns. I have great time for Kevin’s articles, his lucid and direct arguments, even if sometimes I don’t agree fully – it was a relief to know that I was not alone in my thoughts on what I consider to be one of the biggest travesties in the state. This year, Ireland is swinging from the door frame of wreck and ruin. The country has been swept with budget cuts, banks have been all but nationalised, the IMF even turned up for a friendly chat, we were dealt an austerity budget, and in the end we were forced to take a bailout loan that the country will probably never have the capacity to pay back in full. Yes, Ireland will be in the back pocket of the IMF and more worryingly, the EU, for a very long time to come. It’s never a good idea to be the littlest member of the family whose causing trouble for your bigger brothers and I believe it won’t be long before we see hard evidence of that. Anyway, I digress. Despite all of these economically horrific events the one thing that has not been cut is the Dublin Metro project. Roads around the country have been slashed, hospitals will probably be increasingly centralised (i.e. further limit access to), and other nationwide capital expenditure for local councils is being slashed too. However, Dublin still wants its metro and a two finger salute to all those who speak sense to the contrary. The whole thing has become so absurd at this stage that despite there being no money to construct the metro, the project still isn’t being taken off the table. Sheer stubbornness, ignorance and callous disregard for their fellow man. One really does have to wonder whose legacy this metro is. No project as ridiculous as this, in these austere times, would ever survive if it wasn’t to serve as a tombstone epithet for some politician.

3) Student protests and Garda violence. This was the moment that really worried me this year – the moment that democracy all but died. What was largely a peaceful, in some parts sit down, protest by the students of Ireland, turned to a brutal and characterless assault of anyone that dared not be moved. Students moving through the streets, bleeding, Gardaí caught on camera kicking and beating students with truncheons. There could be no cover up for these events, in this time. Yet again Twitter and other social networks started to buzz with photos and videos of the events as they unfolded. We still await the outcome of what will no doubt be a suffocated inquiry.

4) Attack on Prince Charle’s car. Student protests in England surrounding education fees and such, boiled over into troubles and riots. During said troubles, Prince Charles and Camilla were being driven to the London Palladium for a night of unashamed entertainment. So, what would one do? I know Jeeves, let’s drive our most opulent vehicle through the riots. That will calm the students and show them that all is fair and equal. Boom, bang, crash! What more can one say…

5) Wikileaks. Well the year wouldn’t be worth mentioning if we didn’t mention Wikileaks and the debacle surrounding it. For anyone living under a rock for the past year, Wikileaks is essentially true freedom of information sped up and nothing more. However, when civil servants and petty government officials who feel they can be less than diplomatic in their words and actions have information tied to them, released to the public without the option of redacting it, then there’s a problem. Wikileaks isn’t making up anything, it’s simply setting free information that has been gathered by elected and employed public officials, on behalf of their countries. In other words, public information that citizens elected their governments to manage and gather in the best interest of the country. However, as we can see from some of the leaks, not all that information is in best interests, indeed it would appear that a right bunch of immature, undiplomatic and untrustworthy individuals are running this globe. Founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange is strangely finding himself at the centre of a scandal and arrest with subsequent trial at the same time the US are screaming for his head – hmm, me ponders. Amazon cancelled the hosting used by Wikileaks, PayPal froze access to the accounts used for donations to Wikileaks and apparently also froze the accounts of people who donated money to Wikileaks because the US State Department told them it was illegal. Just what kind of people do we have running this world; Where repressed news reports and public information is a reason to assassinate somebody’s character and act in an undemocratic way?

6) Horse Outside. Well, well, “Horse Outside”. The duo known as the Rubber Bandits, known for their antics on RTE’s Republic of Telly, released what can only be described as the track of the year. A controversial, possibly offensive to most societal groups, riotous composition and video to accompany it. I think it’s best to approach the new year with a smile on our faces and a happy state of mind. So, with that philosophy I salute 2010′s passing with one more play of “Horse Outside”.

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Some of the main focal points of the budget include a cap on public service salaries at €250,000 (as I noted yesterday), cuts to social welfare payments, cuts to capital spending, a notable increase in the PRSI contribution for the self-employed, removal of the stamp duty relief (now 1% on all sales under €1 million, and 2% on sales above €1 million), and a widening of the tax bands so that more people are “contributing” to the tax take of the state.

Let’s look at some of the things that weren’t done. To start the cap of €250K on public service salaries is ridiculous, this figure is way too high as I explained in yesterday’s opinion. It’s not that there are enough people earning this to make a significant contribution back to the coffers but rather it plays on the expected average wage and thus increases costs right across the board, untenably so. Ministers and An Taoiseach received a cut. Again a frankly ridiculous token gesture that still sees An Taoiseach earning more than the UK Prime Minister – take a hit, share the pain and then people will accept your proposals. Give them free cheese while you party hard with the leaders of the big countries and you’ll lose them forever – lead by example An Taoiseach. In capital spending we hear that many road projects will be stopped due to cutbacks but still the white elephant that is the Dublin Metro is allowed to proceed as if nothing was wrong. What exactly is the fascination with this project that it has to be kept on the table, even in the most austere times when the potential few who might use it will probably end up emigrating so that it can be built? Means testing social welfare, children’s allowance and pensions was not entertained. Such a simple idea that should gel well with a cabinet who seemingly believes that those who can afford to pay, must and I ask why not those who can afford to go without, be allowed to go without? Rather than cuts in children’s allowance, etc for everyone why not means test it for equitable treatment of the truly deserving? Same goes for pensions, I can’t imagine that ex-Ministers will really be requiring the level of pension payments of which they are in receipt of? Pensions are supposed to be about maintaining a good standard of life after the work is done, not about acquiring even more wealth and expanding savings.

Some basic things that I would have changed anyhow, for what it’s worth. The reality however is that amid all this talk of cuts and harsh measures, we really are just farting around in a huge cup of tea with no chance of achieving anything other than a comical enactment of a Brownian Motion demonstration. The wonderful bailout still hangs over our heads like a net of Damoclean rocks awaiting orders to fall. Senior bond holders (to you and me, this means people who took out a risky investment plan but paid enough in so that nobody would tell them they lost money in a downturn) still go untouched at our expense, even against the recommendations of the IMF. Yes, the IMF (the experts in sorting out financial disaster) were overruled by the boys in the EU who controlled the sweet box full of treehouse monies – thankfully our fate lies in their learned and experienced hands! Yes, the bailout we will not escape. It’s a mathematical certainty of which, only the most unscrupulous liars would have no trouble in denying.

How will the man in the street feel tomorrow morning? Probably a little more annoyed than he feels today, probably a few Euro worse off per week, probably not any different in terms of surviving than he was 12 months previous nor any worse off in those basic terms than he will be in 12 months to come. The country does need a heavy FDI injection to get some money circulating again while we endure the illusion that someday it will all be over and we can go back to 4*4′s in every driveway, bringing the 2.3 children to school and borrowing to acquire a holiday home which would be situated at most, 250 miles from your doorstep but ultimately people just need a reason to drive themselves forward again.

Apathy will attack the heart of the society for some time to come but we need to keep doing something, not for financial gain nor debt removal but for the continuance of the human race and to make life bearable. Very few will end up in 3rd world conditions, it’s attitude and spirit that keeps our heads above water while our meager finances more than cover the real cost of living. Only when man stares into the abyss and all that. I hold out hope that society will bond again, that neighbourly relations and community projects will thrive again and people will turn away from the “it’s my entitlement” attitude that has stifled so much in recent times. I have begun to see small pockets of this spirit grow in the last few months and I dearly hope it will foster the multitude into a new way of being – the old way of being. There’s no need to panic, unless of course you really want to. Maybe the threat to the Irish ladybird at the hands of the Asian ladybird is enough to push you over the edge?

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Much is being uttered regarding a cap on civil service salaries – most recent indications suggest €250,000 will be the limit applied. I do subscribe to the philosophy that there is no greater pain and suffering at any level is individual, beyond comparison. As such I always stay clear of making a logical argument into a battle of two sides where each defeats the other and the problem lives to fight another day – the kind of politics that has been played in this country for way too long. Without applying the classical “but”, I do still feel that as a corrective measure, this rumoured limit is still grossly excessive. Public service is just that, it is people who seek a career that aims to improve the standard of life for everyone and to partake in the running of the country – it’s a vocation of such. Sadly in the last 10 years the public service has been seen as a gravy train by many (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly). There are many lower paid public servants that rightly voice their concerns about cuts but there are equally as many, excessively high-paid public servants, with guaranteed pensions of 50% of their final paycheck who scurry for subterfuge when genuinely angry people come knocking. This is where the gravy train view of the public service gains most credence and it needs to stop. It needs to be tackled by sensible caps on top level scales, the kind of salary that will only attract somebody who wants to make a difference and serve their country not chancers looking for big money first and duty second. The guaranteed pension at 50% of final salary for a full service term also needs to be scrapped or alternatively made less exclusive and opened up to the public to choose as a viable pension offering compared to the leading institutions – either way a flat 50% is not a viable payout.

One of my biggest worries is the legacy of the Greens and the carbon tax inclusions in this budget. Carbon tax was pushed so much as an environmentally conscious mechanism to reduce emissions. However, last week, in the criticism of the 4-year plan by other political forces such as the EU, the truth became blindingly obvious (not as if we didn’t already know). One criticism of the plan by the EU (to save a crippled economy and bring more cash into the public finances) was that they would have liked to see greater carbon taxes. So, there it is folks, the bitter proof – there is no interest in using carbon tax at all, to dissuade pollution or emissions, it’s plain and simple, a tax generator to screw the common man in everything he does. Even in a crippled economy. I dread to see what else will appear under this guise in years to come.

News broke this morning regarding the honour bestowed upon Brian Lenihan, as worst finance minister in the EU. To be honest, I never had much time for Brian, always thought that his ideas and interactions with the public were the actions of a desperate man. However, I don’t think it fair that he has been branded as such in this poll. He inherited a poisoned chalice, a bird’s nest of public finance mismanagement, and a black hole of financial corruption (at least a black hole in terms of public knowledge, some government officials may well have been aware of what lied upon if not beyond the event horizon).

It’s still cold outside; about the only thing that hasn’t entered a state of flux in the last week. I’m working in a public service building whose temperature was well below the HSA guideline minimum (due to heating failure) but nobody left on such grounds. Not a bad result for a country that is supposed to be a militant, unionised farce who drops shovels at the first breach of conditions. Despite what some people want to believe (let’s call them secondary problem creators, primary problem failures) this is not “Carry On at Your Convenience” – if you don’t get the reference then try to watch that movie with its own brand of bawdy, British comedy at some stage that it will probably be aired this festive season. If only people invested the same effort into problem solving as they did into pitting groups against each other; We’d not be in this predicament now, that’s for sure – the eye would never have been off the ball.

So, we sit and wait for the published budget to be aired tomorrow afternoon. We await our financial fate with unprecedented, nervous anticipation. For many years budgets have come and gone. I certainly never paid much heed to the prophecies of doom in previous times. I don’t think we have ever really had a harsh budget in recent history. However, tomorrow’s tale has me a little concerned for the future of society. I foresee a long Winter of civil unrest, should certain things come into being. Yes, it will be cold for a long time to come.

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Journalist Fintan O’Toole has ignited the bitpipe by launching his website and online petition for “radical political reform” and even moreso by the observation that his Twitter account (@fotoole) is only following broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan (@MiriamOCal) and nobody else. The Twitter world went crazy off the back of this news – really, you’d think there was nothing better to talk about.

Bank shares climbed high this morning, the final days of Anglo Irish Bank are finally predicted, bonds shoot through the roof after the fluff regarding our so-called bailout (moreso crippling, inextinguishable loan facility) hits the business world. News that senior bond holders will escape all pain from their gamble angers the public, while the common man sees pension reserves trundled into keeping the fires burning at the state’s most reckless lenders. Performance artist Will St Ledger serves notice of eviction on the Dáil and hands out fake bank notes featuring Bertie Ahern’s face. That’s more paper than I would personally have wasted on anything that wasn’t a warrant for his arrest.

The freezing weather conditions continue to hamper the country; treacherous driving conditions all over, icy footpaths, schools, workers and daily practices, all disrupted. A slight thaw around midday quickly subsides into biting cold, as the slush starts to freeze once more. The psyche of the public turns to log fires and Dickensian walks home in the snowy pasture of Ireland’s once tarmacadam’ed streets. A news report at lunchtime aired advice from senior citizens to senior citizens: The simple things one can do to keep warm, like maintaining the heat on all day and using the old Super-Ser to boost temperatures. Simple things indeed, to stave off hypothermia in the advent of the next coronary inducing gas bill.

To summarise, I think a trio of verses from that lyrical poet Bek David Campbell (otherwise known as Beck), says it perfectly. I leave you with:

tonight the city is full of morgues
and all the toilets are overflowing
there’s shopping malls coming out of the walls
as we walk out among the manure
–
give the finger to the rock ‘n’ roll singer
as he’s dancing upon your paycheck
the sales climb high through the garbage-pail sky
like a giant dildo crushing the sun
–
so get out your lead-pipe pipe dreams
get out your ten-foot flags
the insects are huge and the poison’s all been used
and the drugs won’t kill your day job…honey

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The conversation went from acknowledging the catastrophic leadership of Fianna Fail to immediately seeking a scapegoat to blame more for the problems. Granted the Greens deserve a piece of any right thinking person’s mind, on any given day but to move to them as a worthy recipient for the blame deserving of Fianna Fail and their gross negligence in office at a time before the Greens even had a seat at the cabinet table! Is it any wonder that this country is in such a state? How do we ever expect to progress from the playground if we can’t allow ourselves to identify right and wrong when it comes to our favourite political team? When will we see politicians as employees to get a job done rather than somebody to support as a hobby? It sickens me to the core that we live this way.

Some years ago I was accused of attending the Robert Mugabe School of Economics by a die hard Fianna Fail supporter simply because I wanted to see more emphasis on regional development instead of centralised infrastructure and a focus on industrial and high end jobs to bolster the economy rather than building speculative retail centres and dubious ring roads whose real raison d’etre was always to open up land for rezoning to retail rather than traffic management. I think history will reflect well on my beliefs and hopefully his will be retained, embarrassingly at the back of his mind. Let us never forget that the self-centred, centralised policies of Fianna Fail caused this and those who subscribed to those policies because “they were alright Jack”, well you deserve special mention in the history books.

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Kayaker rescued off Wexford coast

Tuesday, 30 March 2010 17:37

A man who was reported missing while kayaking off the coast of Co Wexford has been rescued by helicopter this evening.

The Waterford Rescue Helicopter rescued the man, who had been missing for a number of hours, off Slade, Co Wexford.

He has been transferred to Waterford Regional Hospital.

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After the alarm was raised earlier today, lifeboats from Dunmore East, Fethard and Kilmore Quay were launched to search for the man.

The helicopter assisted in the search with some local fishing vessels. The LÉ Orla arrived on scene as well to assist.

via rte.ie

Southeast SAR Helicopter

To think that a government would risk doing away with this service, potentially costing so many lives for a measly saving of €1M per year – beggars belief! Thankfully it has also been announced that the service will be kept at Waterford rather than scaled back as originally suggested by the government. This is a huge relief to everyone living in the Southeast as we all have to look after each other down here – there’s little support from elsewhere.

Posted via web from jbwan’s posterous

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Yes, I advocate the NO vote but so too am I realistic with respect to the current state of play. Without offence to any individual, the YES side is made up of people whose jobs would not exist if they were not needlessly paid by somebody to be there and die hard Euro fanatics who would question their own mother before questioning the European Parliament, e.g. die hard trade unionists, politicians, minority businessmen whose business depends on EU subsidies, etc. The NO side is made up of people who are independent, self-starters who didn’t inherit a business to run, and minority political forces who will never become career politicians of any magnitude.

So why am I so convinced that the treaty will be carried? Well it’s simple really. The Irish are easily scared, rarely exhibit backbone, and are too ignorant to actually read anything they ever vote on. In addition to this, so-called independent bodies have done nothing but publish guides on how to vote YES, debates on national TV have always portrayed a majority leaning towards YES, the only credible NO campaigner is the victim of a slur campaign by our government and also was brought onto the main evening news to be ripped apart while no YES campaigner has ever received a similar treatment nor stern questioning of the value in voting YES. Finally, effecting the Lisbon Treaty will have consequence as simply put, consequence is the result of implementing any change, and no act of sublime lunacy is without consequence.

So a provisional congratulations to the self-interest groups and career politicians who successfully ran a campaign of, well actually it debases all my beliefs to call it a campaign given that not a single fact was used by the pro-YES vote side. Equally annoyed I am at the pro-NO side for using equal amounts of scaremongering and fallacious rubbish before anyone says anything about them. Anyway, congratulations on making it an iron clad fact that the voice of the Irish people will never be listened to within their own country nor within the EU. Congratulations on securing an opinion poll majority from people who believe that Lisbon will effect economic recovery. Congratulations on reaffirming your unquestionable stance in society whereby democracy is always wrong unless it’s the answer you want. Well done – you should be very proud of yourselves.

For anyone as of yet undecided, for those who have not bought the claptrap that a YES will bring economic recovery, keep us in Europe, send out waves of positivity to foreign investors, and pave the streets with gold – fair play to you for not yet being sucked in. For those who are die hard that the EU has treated us so well, that being part of the EU is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that life can’t exist without the EU as it stands, I have the following question: Why on earth are you voting in a treaty that guarantees changes to the EU and doesn’t preserve it in the way that it currently exists and has been good to us? The only consequence as a result of Friday’s vote will be if the treaty is passed – any other outcome changes nothing about the operation of the EU nor Ireland’s role within.

I’m not a Euro sceptic nor do I have any paranoid delusions of the EU being out to get us. I simply don’t ever accept YES as a default action and I despise change for the sake of change; change that serves little other purpose than justifying huge amounts of expenditure by some group of bureaucratic pen pushers. Let’s put it this way, if the Public Service in Ireland was campaigning for the opportunity to give itself more power and waste extraordinary amounts of public money on rejigging documents that have little to no effect on the running of the country, would you vote YES to their campaign?

Anyway, “que sera, sera”. Frankly I am both ashamed to be an Irish citizen and also ashamed to be a European who is currently frowned upon for not letting petulant, power-hungry, politicians get their way. Post-Lisbon Ireland will bear little difference to pre-Lisbon Ireland – only the passage of time will have any effect on the landscape. Twice in recent history we stuck our heads out and said something to the EU and twice we were slapped on the wrists – I wonder will Lisbon change the respect that Ireland gets for talking? Will effectively becoming a spineless jellyfish who swallows pride and forgets beliefs, win us the respect that we clearly do not yet have from Europe? Only time will tell…

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Before the first Lisbon vote, many people had a great number of concerns about the Lisbon Treaty’s content. Unusually despite this, every single, major political party supported the YES vote. The public were subjected to the opinions of ministers who openly admitted never reading the treaty document yet were convinced that YES was the only way to vote. After the NO vote won out, the government played out on the back foot for a while; the occasional snipe at the public and various fallacious comments such as how they made the recession worse by voting NO.

In recent times we have heard about the legal agreements sought by the government of Ireland, that would protect the points of concern, as expressed by the public. Concerns that you will remember, did not exist before the last vote as they were supposedly non-issues. However, the government now seems to agree that these are actually issues and has spent a great deal of public monies on legal council and drafting these so-called guarantees. So, the NO vote was right all along, we actually had genuine concerns?

So, the parties’ line is now that these agreements are in place and protect the genuine concerns of the Irish people so we can all be good little EU subordinates and vote YES because they want us to. Every major broadcaster and printed media has conveyed this message to the people and many lobby groups have convinced pockets of voters that YES is now the only option because these guarantees are in place. Very clever PR and electioneering; I take my hat off to the powers that be for conceiving and executing such an incredibly intricate and conniving plan.

What we haven’t heard anything about in the Irish media is how not a single word of the Lisbon Treaty document has been changed. We have also not been told how these guarantees are standalone documents that do not form an appendix to the treaty and that these guarantees are effected now, prior to the impending second vote on the treaty. What we are not being told is that voting YES to this treaty will supercede these guarantees, give power to the EU commission on all future decisions (a commission on which Ireland is still not guaranteed a seat) and allow the EU commission to govern with a treaty that remains unchanged from the original NO vote, still carrying all the concerns of the Irish public (confirmed recently by the Irish government’s actions as being genuine concerns). So essentially, Lisbon II will see the Irish government persuade the Irish citizens to return to the polls and despite ratifying all original fears and concerns, ignore their better judgement and vote YES anyway. This request will be made despite not a single word of the original treaty being changed and our only guarantees of comfort being standalone documents that will be superceded by the treaty coming into effect, rendering them null and void.

While not being one for holding back on what I believe in nor what I think about things, I really am lost for words that the Irish government truly believes that the Irish people are that stupid. I’m further confounded that somehow, lobby groups are managing to persuade certain groups that these hard times are linked to the last NO vote. I’ve always said that the Irish state verged on being Orwellian but am I truly gobsmacked at the blatant, stone-faced, audacity with which this deception is being performed.

Last time I voted NO because of concerns that the Irish government now says are genuine. Nothing has changed and the Irish people are being hoodwinked by clever political manoeuvres and fallacious scaremongering – this time I will be voting NO again, regardless of what anyone says. We’re still at square one.

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Despite Ireland being in recession and despite an emergency, early budget to try to deal with the crisis, and despite a projected shortfall in taxes of €7.5 billion the government of Ireland still sees fit to proceed with a €4 billion plan to develop a small metro system in Dublin. This proposed budget, which will no doubt be inflated as time goes on given government failures with previous capital projects, is equal to over half of the tax shortfall and would put the country in a far better position financially if it was not spent developing a metro line only in Dublin. Many respected business people have already said that building a metro in Dublin will not be a sensible decision nor return any true net worth to the tax payers who are paying for it. In addition, a similar metro project, but more advanced, was completed in Madrid in 2003 at a mere €1.6 billion (http://www.urbantransport-technology.com/projects/madrid/), less than half of the proposed Irish budget. This is a gross misuse of Irish taxpayer’s money and it should be stopped. It’s no more than a vanity project for the government and is far too costly in these times of economic recession and tax shortfalls. Join the cause, let the feeling be known!

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