Internet Commentator

Culture is whatever I want it to be.

Anyone who still thinks that the Irish edition of the Sunday Times is a uniformly "right wing" publication because it used to employ Eoghan Harris in the previous century would do well to read the abysmal witterings of one Michael Ross, editor of the Culture section, who strongly resists this characterisation. He used to confine his weekly, weakly missives to relating the various petty squabbles between the boards of cultural institutions, the Arts council and the Irish government. Patently more interested in the process by which Culture is funded by the government than, well, the actual culture itself, he has more recently dropped any kind of pretence that his cultural comment should be about culture at all and instead fulminates on matters political, economic and social displaying a miserable comprehension of such matters commensurate with his purported job description as a culture specialist.

Last week, (no link available) he erroneously claimed for political gladfly Eamon Dunphy, on the basis of his working class background, some sort of longstanding leftwing opposition to the way the rich "reinforce their privilege" to the detriment of those less well off. In fact, hard as it is to pin Dunphy down on a single unwavering principle, this is closer to being the opposite of Dunphy's declared views. He was, after all, closely associated with the Progressive Democrats at their inception and has generally been in favour of economic liberalism and reform. This week, I was amused by Ross' recent column on the Irish Times, in particular a throwaway remark, that the "galvanising of the economy driven by Ray McSharry's" [sic] reforms was "achieved at the expense of the poor". Such a breadth of economic ignorance revealed by those seven little words. No expense at all was incurred by the poor. Indeed the poor were spared, by McSharry, the "expense" represented by unemployment continuing into the foreseeable future or the necessity to emigrate in search of employment.

One of Ross' themes is the "cheerleading" by various Irish media outlets of an economic dynamism he sees (without evidence) as detrimental to the interests of the "poor". He might profitably direct his attention to the Business pages of his own newspaper, where, among such cheerleading, he could learn something about the actual problems Ireland faces, such as our ruinously expensive and inefficient public sector for example, instead of the phantom problems he conjures up of inequality and insufficiently extravagant arts spending.

Every Cloud...

Now, I'm not normally one for peddling conspiracy-theories. Particularly those relating to the death of Diana Spencer in 1997 in a Paris car crash. Of her demise, one need only ask the question: Cui Bono? Irritant though she might have been to her former husband's family, it is hard to imagine her mother-in-law demanding to be "rid of this turbulent princess". And as for the latest suggestion that she was silenced before she could declare her, no doubt extremely influential, support for the Palestinian cause: Yeah. Whatever.

However, when it comes to a disgraced Irish politician, who had hitherto refused to reveal to corruption tribunals the extent of his various murky dealings and the identity of his benefactors, to the point of serving time in jail for contempt of court, meeting his doom in a late night car crash, I don't feel quite so confident ruling out foul play. I would have thought that Moscow would prove a considerably more congenial place to arrange a fatal car crash than Paris and, when it comes to who benefits, as the Irish Examiner puts it:

Suggestions are now being made that the Mahon Tribunal will never get to the root of the problems, because Lawlor is likely to take many secrets with him to his grave.

Indeed, from the point of view of certain individuals Lawlor does seem to make a cadaver eccellente.

The Broom (of Anger) is back!

Only just noticed that Carrie is back blogging with a new URL, so apologies for a week long delay bringing this to your attention:

I mean, who is this securocrat thing aimed at, anyway? Does anyone at this point in time really believe in securocrats? Are they not like Sinn Fein's anti-Santa Claus? The mean securocrats going in trying to tell Santa that SF have been bad all year and should only get coal for Christmas. Damn them! They're everywhere!

It's gotten so over-played it's a parody of itself. I mean, you had securocrats robbing the Northern Bank to make SF look bad. And then securocrats were turning a bar-room brawl into an international incident, just to make Adams look bad in America. Oh and those securocrats meddling in Colombia. See, even I bore myself with thinking of the oft-repeated litany of all the things securocrats have had a hand in, and that's only three things, not even the tip of the iceberg where securocrats are concerned.

Paradise Lost

OK, time to get all Fay in Bray on yo' ass (albeit larded with pretentious allusions). Dundalk's answer* to Paris' Champs Elysee, The Long Avenue (aka Avenue Road) intersects with the misleadingly titled Inner Relief Road which up until a few weeks ago formed part of the route from Dublin to Belfast. As can be imagined, there used to be quite a significant tailback up to this roundabout on all directions, particularly during the rush hours. And then the By Paso opened. Bliss it was indeed to be alive in those few fleeting weeks. One could journey into work from Blackrock, straight up to and around the Long Avenue roundabout without the traditional purgatorial delay. Elysian Fields indeed. No longer. Dundalk Town Council, in its infinite wisdom, has decreed that, now the volume of traffic passing through this junction has reduced, it would be a good idea to activate pedestrian crossings. So far so unremarkable. However, the traffic lights are all linked (perhaps DTC seeks to faciliate roundabout fetishists who like to cross all the way around the junction back to where they started?) shutting down the entire junction if someone wants to traverse one of the four crossings. And so, this roundabout now features tailbacks of a similar proportion to those associated with the entirety of Dublin-Belfast traffic passing through the junction.

* Well not exactly an answer so much as a curt retort

Something's in the holy water in Clonard...

...and  I do believe it causes presidents and priests to say the darndest things.   While neither Alec Reid or Mary McAleese are fools, it's hard to believe that these friends of long standing don't pick up the phone and remind each other never to user Third Reich analogies before addressing public meetings on this island.  It ain't rocket science, people.   (Another Nazi invention to avoid...unless the end game of the constitutional nationalist project is to  shoot Big Ian into space).

We're not exactly short of fields

I've been saying this for quite a while but it's nice to see it aired in a mainstream forum. Alan Ruddock makes the case for abolishing zoning:

Houses are expensive in Ireland because we refuse to change our approach to planning. We are wedded to a system that artificially restricts the land than can be built on. We then express horror that artificial restriction leads to corruption, high prices and exorbitant profits for property speculators. Remove that limitation and the price of land should quickly subside to more rational levels. In short, abolish zoning.

Land is not a scarce commodity, yet we choose to make it scarce and then delegate decisions to local politicians and county planners. It is a recipe for corruption and, by extension, poor planning, but, just as importantly, it guarantees high prices.

While abolition sounds radical, even reckless, it need not be. Some broad restrictions could apply — areas of natural beauty could be protected, planning applications could be opposed through the courts — but the central presumption would be dramatically altered. Land near urban areas would be deemed available for development unless dezoned by the courts, rather than unavailable for development unless zoned by politicians.

At a stroke, the price of land would fall. Critics might want to believe that a liberal planning regime would throw up environmental horrors, but they can hardly argue that restrictive planning has created a well-thought-out, purpose-built country

This should be simple common sense. Nobody should really expect land to be a scarce commodity in a temperate country with a population density of 55.5 people per square kilometre. For comparison: Portugal and France manage twice as many, the UK, almost five times as many. All three of these countries have plenty of unspoilt countryside.

Traditions schmaditions

Wise words indeed from Hugh Green:

I am convinced that the best way to live in Ireland is to choose to belong to neither of these 'traditions', which are, for the most part, extravagant fictions.

Hear, hear.

Who's running this country?

Bertie Ahern or  Leon Trotsky?  As housewife's favourite, Brendan Ogle, mans the barricades at every ESB depot, the question's no nearer to being answered.  Still, at least Dundalk's pre-eminent wildcat striker  remains good for a bitter, cynical  laugh.  In a radio interview yesterday evening, he claimed that ESB management were at fault for not referring his union's bizarre and unworkable stance  - previously agreed-to outsourcing outsourcing  is now bad, mmmmkay? - to the Labour Relations Commission for further discussion, even though management had no such obligation.    I believe that morale among the staff in this effective monopoly is desperately low and even the average pay cheque of upside of €80,000 isn't easing the pain.  Poor dears.    Given Ogle's previous in the calamitous and equally unwarranted rail strikes of 2000-2002,  I'd be reviewing the ATGWU's negotiating licence in forensic detail, particularly in the light of the union's fractious relationship with its head office on the neighbouring island.   This, of course, will never happen in the context of successive governments' idée fixe of the happy-clappy, consensus-building national agreement. 

Think tanks ain't what they used to be

Remember the time when the Economic and Social Research Institute at least offered a semblance? Well, that time has passed. Skilled in the dark arts of bureaucromancy as I am, I predict that this proposal will be submitted to the first cabinet meeting after the Oireachtas' eternal summer break. My favourite part is the proposal that "subsidies could be introduced to offset the hardship to the 220,000 families who struggle to afford fuel" . Perhaps these subsidies will be funded by hiking the government's existing tax take from a litre of fuel, which is an entirely separate Mother State Knows Best tax from the proposed Mother State Knows Best one on the table.

In other news, the number of public servants employed in this dynamic, open economy has risen by 7,300; It's not all doom and gloom, though: trades unions now represent barely a third of Ireland's worker bees.

Sage words indeed

Ciarán O'Kelly on the dichotomy at the heart of Irish Nationalism:

I've actually been thinking about Wolfe Tone and Padraig Pearse today and whether the problem with Irish nationalism has always been the illusion that Tone's enlightenment republicanism and Pearse's romantic nationalism were reconcileable. I don't think they are: once you head down the cultural, ethnic and religious nationalism of Pearse you've abandoned the enlightenment ideals of Tone.

Quite right. It isn't really possible to be a nationalist and a republican. By definition, a nationalist considers that the interests of his nation and the people who belong to the nation, his ethnic kin, override the interests of people who don't belong or choose not to belong. A republican, by contrast, purports that people be treated equally regardless of their ethnic identity or religious faith.

Ciarán notes that this explains SF's "incoherent" aspirations for this Island (especially so if one adds their supposed socialism into the mix) but I think this conflation also explains the Irish tolerance for "constructive ambiguity" (long after it has ceased being constructive and well into the "obstructive ambiguity" stage). If your political affiliation requires you to subscribe to two contradictory propositions, right from the off - and Sinn Fein are by no means the only "nationalist republicans" - doublethink, and doublespeak soon become second nature.