Irish politicians’ gravy train intact despite escalating debt burden

The proposed €120 billion plan proposed at the two-day summit in Brussels last night is relatively modest when compared to the National Debt of Ireland, which nos stands at  €129 billion

While the Government wrestles with its conscience about the phenomenal debt burden on Irish taxpayers’ and the implications of the personal insolvency of many of them, one facet of that burden which seems utterly immune from the conscientious distress of the Government is the quantum of taxpayers’ money paid to political parties and Independent members of the Oireachtas under the Electoral Acts.

The sums involved are additional to the very substantial tax-free payments in respect of the Parliamentary Standard Allowance, the Travel and Accommodation Allowance and the other direct supports provided through the Oireachtas Commission at a cost of €130 million in 2011. They are simply outrageous, unconscionable and, in a society bearing a cumulative exchequer deficit well over €82 billion and a titanic National Debt, unaffordable.

The standard of accounting is risible in the case of political parties and non-existent in the case of Independent politicians. The quality of oversight reporting by the politically-compromised Standards in Public Office Commission is opaque, shoddy, wretched, inconsistent and disregarding of basic accounting conventions.

Thanks to the bountiful munificence of Charlie McCreevy in 2001 political parties have been granted over €78 million of taxpayers’ money since 1 January 2007 under the authority of the Electoral Acts to meet reported expenditure of under €64 million with €14 million left in their balance sheets. Last year 29% of the €13.3 million paid to political parties was carried over to 2012, probably as a consequence of the vast sums spent paying a myriad of ministerial political advisers.

The scale of these payments escalated since 2002 by 47% in line with increases in public sector pay but it is most noteworthy that payments to political parties did not reduce when public sector pay reduced from 2009 onwards.

Do taxpayers really need to: pay Fianna Fáil €28,542 in respect of depreciation, (a non-cash charge); pay Fine Gael €18,657 to spend on ‘donations’; pay the Labour Party €44,000 to spend on ‘international affairs’; provide €28,700 to the Sinn Féin ‘national finance department’ and leave €90,000 in the balance sheet of The Green Party, which has no Oireachtas membership? [/over]

Fine Gael and Labour voted against the appointment of a politician (former Fianna Fáil minister, Michael Smith) in a Dáil vote on 19 December 2007 to membership of the Standards Commission, a curtain-raiser initiative of the Ahern Government that preceded the publication of tribunal reports. It is interesting that only 15 of the 73 TDs who supported that motion are in the current Dáil and they include the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, John McGuinness, Independent Deputies Noel Grealish, Finian McGrath, Mattie McGrath and Michael Lowry.

Both the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny and the Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore,  participated in the Níl vote against that motion. If the Governing parties position in 2007 opposed the principle of a politician, or former politician, becoming a member of a commission whose mandate is to oversee the ethical standards of politicians and public officials’, why has this Government not already removed political influence from the Standards Commission, especially in the light of the tribunal reports’ findings and instructed it to improve the quality of its published reports rather than tolerating its interminable excuses for inertia and weakening moral authority?

Will the Government’s ambition to reduce the debt burden on taxpayers’ include a dramatic reduction in the amounts of State money paid to political parties to a level that is affordable and demand a more transparent and credible regime of accounting for this money, or does the Government merely intend to haunt society with threats, innuendo and rumours of more taxation, new charges and cuts in public services?

Political party State funding, a rich, rewarding gravy train

The scale of funding provided by taxpayers to political parties under the Electoral Acts and the Party Leader’s Allowance legislation, by any benchmark, is so outrageous, absurd, unaffordable and inadequately accounted for that political parties have become equivalent to bloated, featherbedded and State-dependent QUANGOs.

Figures recently published show that taxpayers provided €12.66 million last year to which a further €3.1 million was carried forward from 2010 bringing their spending capacity in 2011, courtesy of taxpayers’, to €15.77 million. They reported spending €11.88 million which means they brought forward €3.8 million to 2012; a 26% increase on the sum carried forward, unspent, from 2010, in an era of severe austerity, great personal sacrifice and massive cutbacks.
 
To put the scale in context, the British Government provided €8 million in 2011 to Opposition parties who successfully contested the 2010 general election for research support for front-bench spokesmen. The 2010 British general election consisted of a valid poll of 27.1 million votes. Our 2011 general election consisted of 2.2 million 1^st preference votes.

Despite the attachment of an auditor’s certificate the accounting for this money is pathetically obscure; devoid of candour and adequate transparency, notwithstanding the proximity of the Standards in Public Office Commission as overseer.

The Standards Commission advise that Fianna Fáil, for example, claimed to spend €28,542 on ‘depreciation’, a non-cash expense. Fine Gael spent €18,657 on ‘donations’. Labour spent €44,666 on ‘international affairs’. Sinn Féin spent €28,700 on its ‘national finance department’. The Green Party, with only 41,000 general election votes and without a single Oireachtas member, managed to spend €341,466 but have still brought forward over €90,000 to 2012. The pair of two-TD parties received so much funding that they are bringing forward almost €93,000 of unspent taxpayers’ money to 2012 leaving the four of them to eke out an existence on the €167,462 in tax-free travel, subsistence and Parliamentary Standard Allowances.

The People Before Profit Alliance spent just €1,000 on ‘pre-Budget research’ but over €7,500 on ‘travel and subsistence’, over and above the €20,000 their TDs collected in travel and subsistence to commute from the adjacent Dublin suburbs last year. The Socialist Party has obliged all taxpayers to pay €4,689 in respect of the production of Socialist Party publications. Independent members [/over] of the Oireachtas pocketed €713,885, free of income tax, without even an auditor’s certificate, or any obligation whatsoever to account for this money. Some of them tell us they donate their allowances to charity.

The Parliamentary Leader’s Allowance, which last year amounted to €7.2 million, is linked to pay increases in the civil service but the legislation does not compel a reduction in line with civil service pay cuts and the radical pruning of the public sector since 2009.

It is noteworthy, in the context of the statutory mandate that 30% of selected candidates in the next general election are to be female, that 1.4% of the €5.4 million provided to seven parties under the Electoral Acts was applied to the promotion of participation of women in political activity.

The foregoing expenditure is separate and distinct from the €6 million received, tax-free, directly by TDs in respect of the Parliamentary Standard Allowance and generous tax-free travel and subsistence allowances, which they receive when they turn up for the 100 days sitting of the Dáil each annum.

Spending last year on political parties is equivalent to an average of €1,311 for each 200 votes received by qualifying parties in the February 2011 general election. Political parties in Great Britain and the North are obliged to provide detailed annual audited accounts since 2003. The average overall subvention for each set of 200 votes won by qualifying parties in the last British general election in 2011 was €37.16, less than 3% of what Irish taxpayers are saddled with.

The ridiculous scale of political party spending in Ireland is also illustrated when the campaign cost of each vote cast, €4.17 in the 2011 general election is compared to the campaign cost of each vote cast in the 2010 British general election, €1.07.

Is there any other facet of the €52 billion in current expenditure that is spent by the Government so out of kilter with economic reality, where loose and ambiguous rules are tolerated and the standard of elementary accountability to stakeholders is so opaque?

How can the Irish Government, reform-minded and responsible for public expenditure, public sector reform and the adequacy of corporate governance standards look voters in the eye while this self-indulgent squandering orgy that is unnecessary and which is taking place directly under their collective nose?

The British political party subvention, incidentally, is restricted to Opposition parties with at least 2 MPs and more than 150,000 votes (0.55% of the national poll). It is based on three elements:

1. General funding of €18,600 per seat + €30,04 for every 200 votes

2. Apportioned travel expenses for Opposition parties subject to an overall limit of €204,000

3. A sum for the running of the Leader of the Opposition’s office

4. Salaries for three post holders: Leader of the Opposition’ Opposition Chief Whip and Assistant Opposition Whip

Big Phil’s mighty ambition for women in Irish politics

Environment Minister ‘Big Phil’ Hogan wants more women TDs.  As his Electoral (Amendment)(Political Funding Bill 2011 winds its way through the Oireachtas, ‘Big Phil’ envisages that 30% of the candidates selected to contest the next general election un Ireland by the political parties who obtain State funding (Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin) will have to be females.  That pot of gold is worth €27.28 million over the next five years.  Failure to comply will eliminate the party concerned from any State funding throughout the life of the 32nd Dáil which must take office by February 2015.

The population of Ireland is forecast to increase to 5.69 million by 2026, a mere 14 years ahead. Currently, each TD represents, on average 26,873 voters.  If this ratio were to maintained the Dáil would comprise 211 TD’s in 2026 and Big Phil envisages that 30%, or 63 of them would be women.  This will mean that up to 250 female candidates will have to contest the general election that creates the 34th Dáil.

As the table below shows, ten constituencies account for 45% of the total votes cast for women in 2011 and for 12 of the 25 female TDs.

A female candidate had a 2/1 chance of being elected in Dublin in the 2011 general election but the chances of a female candidate succeeding in the Border, Midland & West Region, or the Mid-West was significantly less. 

There are currently 25 females TDs (15%) among the 166 that populate the 31st Dáil.  There were 85 female candidates (15%) among the 566 that contested the 2011 general election.  These garnered 335,532 (15%) of the total poll of 2,230,359 votes cast.  Three constituencies, Cork South-West, Kildare South and Limerick did not field a single female candidate.  The following is the voting record of women candidates’ in 2011 when women achieved 20%, or more of the votes cast.  Interestingly, the female vote in Galway W was 22% – but not enough to win a seat, while five female TDs won seats with significantly less than a quota.

The 25 female TDs won 178,975 first preference votes – 53% of all votes cast for women.  They spent €354.333 on their campaigns – equivalent to an average of €1.98 per vote

The State has provided taxpayers’ funding of over €90million to political parties in the decade to 2010 – but less than €900,000 was spent on promoting the cause of women in elected politics.  A massive cultural change will be necessary to achieve Big Phil’s dream if it is not to descend to the farce that has befallen the Household Charge and the Septic Tank Charge.

 

Constituency	Total Votes	Female TDs / Female Candidates’ Votes	Female Votes % Total Votes
Carlow-Kilkenny	73,743	(1) 18,647	25%
Cavan-Monaghan	71,275	(1) 21,253	30%
Clare	57,916	1,099	2%
Cork E	56,933	(1) 6,802	12%
Cork NC	52,137	(1) 7,676	15%
Cork NW	45,740	(1) 9,436	21%
Cork SC	64,040	9,038	14%
Cork SW	45,658	0	0
Donegal NE	37,918	1,150	3%
Donegal SW	43,263	5,211	12%
Dublin C	34,612	(2) 15,583	45%
Dublin MW	42,722	(2) 14,776	35%
Dublin N	49,347	(1) 7,513	15%
Dublin NC	38,774	2,641	7%
Dublin NE	41,839	4,794	11%
Dublin NW	32,811	(1) 9,359	29%
Dublin S	72,646	(1) 19,948	27%
Dublin SC	50,927	(2) 12,178	24%
Dublin SE	34,919	(1) 7,248	21%
Dublin SW	45,964	3,678	8%
Dublin W	42,472	(1) 9,627	23%
Dun Laoghaire	56,676	(1) 19,926	35%
Galway E	59,276	7,755	13%
Galway W	60,625	13,418	22%
Kerry N- W Limerick	45,614	2,161	5%
Kerry S	44,380	5,327	12%
Kildare N	51,222	(1) 11,688	23%
Kildare S	38,270	0	0
Laois-Offaly	74,158	(1) 5,817	8%
Limerick	45,041	0	0
Limerick City	43,188	(1) 6,843	16%
Longford-W’meath	57,525	(1) 3,555	7%
Louth	69,319	4,546	7%
Mayo	74,154	(1)17,215	23%
Meath E	42,752	(1) 9,845	23%
Meath W	40,178	9,809	24%
Roscommon-S Leitrim	47,504	0	0
Sligo-N Leitrim	44,428	5,672	13%
Tipperary N	48,273	8,709	18%
Tipperary S	41,361	4,525	11%
Waterford	53,720	(1) 5,554	10%
Wexford	75,539	175	0%
Wicklow	70,500	(1) 5,436	8%
TDs, ranked by votes	Votes	Party	Spend/Vote
Mitchell, O	9,635	FG	€1.59
Burton, J	9,627	Lab	€2.27
Shorthall, R	9,359	Lab	€1.17
Mitchell-O’Connor, M	9,087	FG	€1.91
Mulherin, M	8,851	FG	€1.67
Doherty, R	8,677	FG	€1.73
Humphreys, H	8,144	FG	€1.32
Phelan, A	8,072	Lab	€2.55
Lynch, K	7,896	Lab	€1.94
Collins, A	7,884	FG	€1.50
Daly, C	7,513	S	€0.85
Tuffy, J	7,495	Lab	€1.92
Fitzgerald, F	7,281	FG	€2.11
Murphy, C	6,911	Ind	€2.61
Creighton, L	6,619	FG	€2.61
Collins, J	6,574	PBPA	€1.64
O’Sullivan, J	6.353	Lab	€2.47
McLellan, S	6,292	SF	€1.44
McFadden, N	6,129	FG	€1.66
Corcoran-Kennedy, M	5,817	FG	€2.62
Byrne, C	5,604	FG	€1.82
Conway, C	5,554	Lab	€2.30
Ferris, A	5,436	Lab	€2.67
McDonald, ML	4,526	SF	€4.52
O’Sullivan, M	4,139	Ind	€2.69

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paying Irish ministerial advisers

Much attention has focused on the Irish Government’s decision to beach its own public sector cap, in the case of ministerial advisers, no less than fourteen times.

There is a plethora of advisers, programme managers, drivers and aides recruited to discretionary roles and paid from central funds, many of whom were previously employed by the political parties to undertake similar duties.

The highest paid advisers to the current Government are apparently being paid €168,000, which converts to $225,000.

While these rates are €20,000 per annum less than those paid by the Cowen Government it is interesting to make an international comparison.

Take US Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, for example. Kerry is paid $174,000 per annum and his team of advisers were paid a total of $1,439,193 between 4 January and 30 September 2011.But his team comprises 60 individuals including a Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, Communications Director, Legislative Director, Press Secretary, Boston Office Manager and a plethora of interns, advisers and factotums. The highest paid earned no more than $68,000 (€50,750) in this 9-month period.

Senator Ted Kennedy died on 25 August 2009. He has a personal staff of 39 who earned a total of $1,214,201 (€905,000) and the highest earner was his Chief of Staff who earned $68,254 in nine months.

These US salaries are pathetically low and the work is very demanding, especially when Congress is sitting.  US politicians have considerable leeway in deciding what to pay their staff.  But despite mediocre pay competition for these positions is very intense, especially so in the case of eminent politicians from states as dynamic and important as Massachusetts.  The pay rates bear no relationship to what candidates, many who are high achieving graduates of prestigious universities, could earn in the private sector.  But the prestige of Washington and their value after a stint in politics make the financial sacrifices tolerable and the connections made never prove to be a burden.

Last year taxpayers provided Fine Gael and the Labour Party with a total of €4,409,198 in parliamentary leaders’ allowances. Both government parties, Sinn Féin and Independents will qualify for an even larger parliamentary leader’s allowance this year having won a significant number of additional seats in the recent general election.

Why are the salaries of all political advisers to ministers, aides, drivers and personally appointed programme managers, or at least the excess over and above the rate capped by the Government, not paid out of the leaders’ parliamentary allowance, especially when in government the allowance pot is bigger?

This would give concrete expression to the concept of shared sacrifice and better value for the taxpayers’ euro, but without deterring the recruitment of the ‘best people’. It might even be possible to disregard the public sector pay cap if the salaries are paid from resources to which the political parties are statutorily entitled - which, incidentally, Fianna Fáil only reduced by 1.4% last year when in government.

Political parties scarred by presidential election

Summer time ends in Ireland At 2.00 AM tomorrow morning and I will be en route to Moscow at 5.45 AM, an jour earlier than usual.  But the dark winter evenings should provide Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael with ample time to reflect on the presidential election results.

Fianna Fáil, battered by the general election, did not even contest the election and the party lost the only Dáil seat it held in Dublin in the by-election following the death of the Brian Lenihan.

However, Seán Gallagher, a political novice, who maintained that he was an Independent candidate and having consistently shown a 40% rating in the polls, saw his prospects collapse when it became clear that he was a fund raiser for Fianna Fáil but was not always entirely certain what the source of the funds raised was.

When he mentioned that ‘I may have picked up an envelope’ he sent a shudder through Irish society which reminded them of the venal record of Fianna Fáil and the fact that not all funds raised actually reached their intended target. Despite all of that Gallagher won 504,964 first preference votes which represented a 12% dip on his polling trend.

Fine Gael, now in Government, chose a candidate, Gay Mitchell, who garnered only 113,321 first preference votes – 6.4% of the poll while the party itself is trending in the mid thirties.  This was a diabolical result notwithstanding that one member of the party aristocracy, Leo Varadker, stated that “Gay Mitchell was a good candidate” and another blue blood, Phil Hogan stated that the outcome ‘was not a disaster for the Party’.  What defines a disaster for Hogan? A capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?  They insulted the electorate by choosing a non-viable candidate and then abandoning him.  The electorate will not forget that!

Mary Banotti contested the last presidential election in 1997 for Fine Gael and secured 372,002 first preference votes – 29.2% of the poll .

The Fine Gael candidate in the 1990 presidential election was Austin Currie.  He secured 267,902 first preference votes – 17% of the poll.

The drama queen, Dana Rosemary Scallon, won 51,220 first preference votes in this week’s election and this compares to 175,458 first preference votes when she inflicted herself on the electorate in the last presidential election in 1997.

Opinion poll heralds seismic shift in Irish presidential election campaign

The latest MRBI poll results in The Irish Times are not surprising but there are 21 days campaigning days left and much can change to influence the outcome.

People are deeply and passionately interested in who is the head of state because that person becomes the bearer of a part of the ego of each and every citizen that defines our nation. The public want to know who these candidates really are and not to be merely presented with a sanitized caricature of who the candidates would like the public to perceive them to be wrapped in an enigma that is no more than a stream of vacuous consciousness of the candidate’s concept of utopia.

Michael D Higgins is the only one of the 7 that passed the biographical-details test and who introduced himself and his wife to the wider public via the Miriam Meets programme on RTE 1 Radio when he disclosed some personal minutiae about both of them.

The public also need to have some robust conviction what the election of any candidate is likely to signal about Ireland to the wider world and what impact that candidate will have on the presidential office – especially the capacity to safeguard the dignity of the office and the nation. The president is the mirror of the nation.

The potential implications of these poll trends are considerable. Fianna Fáil has demonstrated that it is so marginalised and reviled that it could not even put forward a candidate from the mainstream of Irish society to begin to inspire public confidence.

The Fine Gael party has some grounds for the deepest introspective reflection and soul-searching if their best offer to the Irish public is a candidate who is trailing second last seven – 35 points lower than the party itself. Enda Kenny has won the trust of the public and presents as a Taoiseach comfortable in that role.

I have seen first-hand in locations far away from Erin’s shore over the past 10 days that he and Eamon Gilmore have managed to salvage the credibility and stature of the country because Ireland is seen overseas as being led by a competent, stable and responsible government by power brokers whose vigilant gimlet eye defines sentiment.

Sinn Féin must think beyond the boundaries of their traditional narrow, conservative regional enclave if they are to make the stunning breakthrough they believe to be their right. They need turn up for the work they are handsomely paid to do in Westminster and scrutinise the legislation that is impacting the lives of tens of thousands of citizens in the single-seat parliamentary constituencies that they were elected to represent. Laggards in any walk of life are ultimately a useless, irrelevant carbuncle on the arse of spineless society. If Sinn Féin is to be acknowledged as a serious party of national leadership then it is time to start leading, not posturing as neighbourhood activists and playing to the whims of a narrow gallery .

The Irish presidential election is becoming chaotic, desultory, pathetic farce!

Gay Mitchell is telling us that how reluctant he is to smile but that his priorities are combatting suicide and child mortality in the third world? The people of Ireland are looking for a head of state, not a drag-queen resembling Mary Magdalene parading his vanity around the globe attaching himself to issues that are beyond the scope of the mandate of the President of Ireland.  If Mitchell wants to become a missionary he needs to pursue a different path.

Is this guy really telling the Irish public that his capacity for public office is so limited and constrained that he cannot even manage to smile at them? If Mitchell performs as chaotically in this election as he is in the campaign that outcome will inflict greater damage on the party that sponsored him than it will on the candidate. What considerations entered the calculus of the Fine Gael party in July when they were choosing a candidate for the presidential election?

The vacuous, evangelical, bullshit that has been proffered about the ‘suitability’ of McGuinness without any concurrent description of what makes Gay Mitchell a compelling candidate for presidential office must bear its own message – and that, too, must be something that does not evoke a smile.

Perhaps it is better for the electorate realise before the election, rather than afterwards, that the disposition of a prospective president to smile graciously is a potential stumbling block to his capacity to relate to them as President. Mr Mitchell there is some substance in the adage – ‘smile and the world smiles with you; scowl and you scowl alone’.

The presidential election campaign by all candidates is degenerating into a pathetic and desultory chaotic farce being acted out by a posse of candidates no more qualified to be head of state that a random selection of hassled commuters at a bus stop in rush hour.

Do these people consider the electorate to be gullible buffoons as they narrate their inane stream of consciousness that is supposed to pass as a compelling case to elect them President of Ireland? The esteem of the nation is at stake and the people deserves better.

Fine Gael to select candidate to contest Áras 2011

Fine Gael will select a candidate to contest the Presidential Election today from among Gay Mitchell, Pat Cox and Mairead McGuinness.  Two of them are Members of the European Parliament and Cox is a former Member and former President of the Parliament.

If one, or more, of these candidates had established sufficient credibility with the electorate they would be entering this selection process radiating a more intense sense of conviction rather than an ambiguous aura of compunction.

None of them have communicated directly with the voters. None of them have described to the electorate their credentials to become Head of State. There is an enormous difference between the skill-set of a European parliamentarian and those of a successful, inspiring President. The qualities that make one competent in one role do not seamlessly transfer to Áras an Uachtaráin. Therefore, as far as this Office is concerned – all of them are strangers with inadequate recognition throughout the country. Opinion polling data about strangers is nonsensical, whatever trend it attempts to portray.

There appeared to be widespread sentiment in Fianna Fáil at the end of the Bertie Ahern’s tenure as Fianna Fáil Leader and Taoiseach that the obvious and only candidate to succeed him was Brian Cowen – based on Cowen’s sound-bites in the course of the 2007 general election and a perception that he had what was necessary to be a strong leader and to pick a competent cabinet. The 2011 general election gave the electorate’s verdict. The voters will be cautious about the sentiment of any political party having been so badly let down by that experience.

The electorate want the next President to be no ordinary, taciturn Joe or Jane Soap. They want an articulate, sophisticated and nuanced President who will defend the Constitution; defend the dignity of our nation and be imbued with a sense of its potential. They want a President with the capacity to promote and reflect the prestige of Ireland across the globe. They want a President who, at one level, has the authenticity to convey the nation’s grief to those afflicted with appalling personal tragedy and, at another level, to inspire an audience of sceptical foreign strangers in faraway places that Ireland is awesome. They want a President who radiates the spirit of Ireland.

Who is electable to conduct such a mandate?

Compulsion will not boost Irish language

Media report sthat Enda Kenny is under pressure over the Fine Gael Irish language plan in the TG 4 debate (17 February) should more properly prompt the language advocates to question their own competence to nourish the language and the enduring legacy of their efforts and vision.

Our 80-year legacy of compulsory Irish teaching in schools has produced 1.6 million people who claim to have a familiarity with the language, according to the 2006 census. But that legacy is incapable of securing a thriving future for Irish. The objective of the recently inaugurated Irish language policy is to nourish the more spontaneous and widespread speaking of Irish on a daily basis by 250,000 people within 20 years. Progress towards this target will depend on personal preference, curiosity, passion and conviction, nor compulsion.

Any viable policy with respect to Irish must first discern which factors underlie changes in personal tastes, habits and preferences.

Our society, for example, embraced refused recycling, a disinclination to smoke cigarettes and a massive preference for wine at the expense of beer over the past decade, totally on a voluntary, or optional basis.

Compulsion, politicians promises, hare-brained policies and millions of euro poured into sterile vested interests will not, on their own, be the powerful catalyst to inspire the necessary passion for the Irish language to thrive. There is no substitute for a genuine affection for the language itself.

Fine Gael to reverse minimum wage cut

Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan TD has unilaterally confirmed that a Fine Gael government will reverse the minimum wage cut imposed by Brian Lenihan in the 2011 Budget. Noonan presumably believes that his solo run will not have moral hazard consequences but he omitted to indicate what Ireland’s rankings in the EU Harmonised Labour Cost Index is likely to be one year after a Fine Gael led government takes office.

The National Minimum Wage Act 2000 set the minimum wage for an adult at €4.40 per hour. The Irish minimum wage increased by over 96% from 2000 to 2009 while GDP per capita in that period had increased by 11.8%.

The restoration of the statutory minimum wage to €8.65 per hour (€17,542 per annum) on the basis that ‘only 3% of the labour force are paid the minimum wage and that its reduction was merely ideological flag waving on the part of Fianna Fáil’.  That begs the question – what happens to the other 97% of the nation’s labour force.

Approximately 3.3% of the labour force received the minimum wage in 2005 when the hourly rate was €7.65; 155,000 were on the Live Register and 91,300 were unemployed.

But in 2006 data from the Revenue Commissioners indicates that 675,000 of those assessed for income tax declared an annual income that was significantly less than the minimum wage before it was increased to €8.30 on 1 January 2007 and to €8.65 on 1 July that year. There are also more minimum wage recipients in the public sector than in the private sector.

Wages and salaries in Ireland dropped by 10.6% in overall terms in the year ended 30 September 2010, before the 2011 Budget was announced.   29% of the labour force do not even make the equivalent of the minimum wage annually and a further 13.5% are unemployed. 

Fine Gael intend to slash tens of thousands of jobs from the public sector and close 145 State bodies.  Who is going to pay the cost of this proposal and what impact will it have on investment, exports, job creation and job maintenance of a scale sufficiently large to reduce chronic levels of unemployment and forced emigration, both documented and undocumented? 

Fine Gael need to clearly articulate the character and stability of living standards and hardship avoidance that will evolve for all citizens under their governance and the relative importance that wealth, welfare and debt will have in underpinning these.

Are Irish political opinion polls really accurate?

Have Irish political parties become intoxicated by opinion polls as they reflect on their ambition to abseil the pantheon of political stardom?

While the polls are giving Fianna Fail a severe hangover, they also indicate that support is not committed firmly and that opinion polls really do not capture voting intentions in a representative way. How could they when those seeking to enter government appear to be paralysed by inertia and in sleep-walking mode within an anticipated 100 days of a widely expected general election?  Perhaps they ought to examine the message from the electorate in opinion polls more closely and not merely rely on the froth of the headline trend.

Fine Gael have yet to choose candidates in 7 Dáil constituencies and given the considerable number of Fine Gael candidates chosen who are strangers to the electorate there is little flair or imagination evident on their web site to educate the electorate about their candidate offering and policies.  

The Labour Party web site does not identify one single general election candidate. Their web site offers the usual blancmange of a ‘better’, ‘fairer’ nation but they still blather about ‘Stop NAMA’ and the ‘threatened’ move to transfer €90 million of property loans from banks. Despite the opinion polls there is no evidence that Labour has a well-drilled, sophisticated, army in place to fight the battle ahead. Will positive opinion poll trends be soured by poor candidate selection?  

The web site of Sinn Féin does have a tab called ‘candidate’ – but that relates to their candidates for the May 2010 British general election in their traditional heartlands in Northern Ireland. Apart from media reports that Mr Adams is to migrate to somewhere in Co Louth there is no evidence that Sinn Féin is serious about general election in the Republic of Ireland other than a generic warble about ‘better’, ‘fairer’ ‘change’ and continue pursuing the goal of Liam Mellows and Bobby Sands ‘to bring us closer to our goals of Irish unity and independence’. Independence of what – the IMF and the ECB? They advocate ‘building an Ireland of equals’ – would that be equality of debt, bound in the chains of eternal welfare, poverty, aimlessness and hopelessness? Given the experience of the 2007 general election a voter would have expected to observe the shoots of economic genius and economic leadership but perhaps what is not there simply cannot be observed and what is offered by Sinn Féin is merely rousing neighbourhood activism. 

The Green Party, at whose instigation, the timing of this general election is to be determined, have shrouded the identity of potential candidates, the constituencies they intend to contest and policies for the future in opacity as dark as mushroom compost covered in black polythene. Is their stamina exhausted or a symptom of jaded leadership? 

The electorate deserve to be informed of the identity of general election candidates; to understand their values and competency. The electorate should not be expected to make choices wearing a blindfold. The electorate also need to form an opinion on the capacity of parties to govern with integrity, wisdom and decisiveness. Ireland will not waffle its way, using clichés, to achieve a semblance of recovery. 

What promise does 2011 hold for Ireland?

We ought to remind ourselves that the average age of our abundantly educated, talented, well-travelled, multi-lingual, sophisticated population is under 35 years and that in itself is a magnificent asset. But the chamber of celestial irrelevancies is entirely populated by jaded, faded mainly late middle-aged members, not one of whom is under 30 years of age. How could they possibly have a relevant engaging relationship, vibrant empathy and a convincing understanding of the needs and aspirations of that younger cohort of the population whose prospects they have seriously blighted?

A new lexicon, based on dubious sense of entitlement, has emerged in Ireland that has allowed its advocates to become more and more detached from the necessity of earning prosperity and wellbeing. Politicians using the expression ‘fair and just’ as code for unsustainable levels of welfare, of a scale that ought not to be necessary in a viable, stable, pay-your-way economy but the scale of which creates a long-term poverty trap for those in receipt of it and those who are obliged to pay for it.

‘Fair and reasonable’ is becoming synonymous with exorbitant professional fees and charges, bonus payments, retirement entitlements of ministers’ etc. – which are also on a scale that is detached from our economic reality. How can a bust nation, whose sovereignty has been surrendered and whose GDP accounts for such a tiny portion of that of the EU, for example, support so many professional firms whose annual revenues place them firmly in the top quartile of their European counterparts? If ‘fair and reasonable’ payments are significantly higher than international norms and greatly exceed what can be afforded – what particular criteria define ‘fair and reasonable’ and what outcomes are delivered by those in receipt of such largesse other than a well-nurtured sense of infinite entitlement?

Ireland’s GDP in 2009 is apparently being 27% higher than the EU average as a consequence of asset price inflation but this so-called wealth is not capable of fully employing the nation’s population or funding its spiralling debt. Where is it, who controls it and how productive is it and what benefit is the nation achieving from it?

Ireland needs an establishment that recognises the importance of and is capable of delivery the nation from one generation to the next in a more enhanced condition than prevailed when they obtained the power to influence it. That requires more than a Dáil comprised of neighbourhood populists, passing opportunists, the unimaginative self-righteous and sundry ‘blow-in’s’ from distant parts.

But neither Fine Gael, the Greens, nor The Labour Party has presented a complete panel of prospective candidates to the electorate to contest the general election that is to take place only weeks away. How can the electorate form an opinion of what these parties are capable of achieving, or is the electorate to merely rely on the trends in opinion polls to identify virtue and potential?

Fine Gael’s approach to the presidential election brimming with vision

A brim is the upper edge of anything hollow.  The verb brimming describes something that is full to the brim – and Fine Gael are certainly not brimming with vision when the issue is the next presidential election.

A comment this morning on the Marian Finucane RTE 1 radio programme by Brian Hayes the Fine Gael TD to the effect that ‘an agreed candidate’ might be an option for the next President of Ireland almost induced an episode of collective projectile vomiting in our household.  

Ireland has been afflicted with a Taoiseach who has no public mandate and the suggestion that a so called ‘agreed candidate’ is an appropriate means of determining the next President is an appalling, ugly vista that totally compromises our fundamental democratic rights and falls within the same retarded school of political thinking that advocates gender quotas.

The very least the nation should expect is that the major political parties are capable of sponsoring a viable candidate and if they are unable to do so their chances of governing effectively are correspondingly weakened.  Do  Fine Gael not have the balls to play this game on the electoral playing field?  That need not exclude Fine Gael sharing the endorsement of a candidate but the person nominated must be one of several candidate who must contest a presidential election.

A major weakness in the presentation of those who have tilted at the prospect of a nomination so far is their reluctance to state clearly at a high level at the outset what their credentials are to become head of state. 

Therefore, how can a voter deduce if someone from Kerry who was once president of the GAA is an attractive choice to become President of Ireland because he offers not an inkling as to how he would execute the office?  Does writing about agricultural issues in the media and representing subsidy-hunting farmers in the European Parliament constitute a satisfactory launching pad for the presidency, especially when nothing else is known about the person concerned?  Will the country, where the median age of the population is slightly under the age of 35 years embrace the concept of a candidate who would be 77 years of age at the end of the next presidential term excite voters? 

There will be a gap in each and every instance between the background and current activities of these individuals and their capacity to be a successful president.  There is no such thing as a ready-made presidential candidate.  That is why each one must address the central question as to why he, or she, is worthy of public trust in this supreme office.  Imagine if the nation is be afflicted with another ‘George Lee’ type whose credentials for office are ‘wonderful’ but whose capacity to serve in elected office was pathetic.

It is not for me, or any other commentator, to provide the ultimate answer and that is why there must be a presidential election which offers a choice of decent, attractive candidates.  I trust that Mr Hayes observation is the first and last occasion I hear talk of ‘an agreed candidate’. 

Laws governing Irish building societies must be changed

The report published by the  National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA),  A Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland was described in the media  as 'a scathing and unambiguous attacks on the role of politicians' in the housing debacle.  The report highlights how ludicrous fiscal policy and reckless planning decisions resulted in thousands of uninhabited and unwanted, exorbitantly priced, houses being built in hundreds of estates at undesired, remote and poorly serviced locations across the country.  It is a pity that the report did not also shine a tangential bright light on the toxic and corrosive impact of building societies, driven by the legislation governing them.

When environment minister, Pádraig Flynn, was steering the Building Societies Bill 1989 through the Oireachtas in February of that year he said that it would ‘set very few boundaries to the future and scope of societies’. This included the empowering of building societies to acquire, hold, dispose of and develop land where the land is used for commercial purposes – other than residential.

The Bill was welcomed by Fine Gael spokesman Alan Shatter with an exclamation that Irish building societies 'must not be constrained by legislation enacted for a different time'.  It was also welcomed by Ruari Quinn and the Labour Party although he expressed reservations about their capacity to compete in financial services and a desire that the historical role of the building societies would be retained..  Building societies were granted virtually unlimited freedom to act like banks and their attempts to do so subsequently imploded in abject failure.

There were 23 building societies in existence when the State was founded. There were 10 in existence when this legislation was passed. The savings of their 1.25 million members’ at that time was equivalent to 20% of all savings in the country. More than six of every ten persons who financed the purchase of their own home in the late 1980’s did so by means of a loan from a building society.  Two failed building societies remain in existence, courtesy of NAMA and the taxpayer.

But there is a thriving, if more rationalised, building society sector in Britain. The 50 building societies there have deposits of £220 billion, accounting for almost 22% of all deposits. These finance residential mortgages of £225 billion, about 19% of the total residential mortgages outstanding. Apart from offering their members better value than banks, British building societies must not raise more than 50% of their funds from wholesale markets, but the average proportion raised from this source is actually closer to 30%.

The scale and success of the credit union movement in Ireland reflects a strong appetite for community-focused savings and loan institutions with mutual status. Should the inquest into the demise of our housing sector not also include a recommendation for revised legislation that ensures building societies stick to their fundamental mission of making loans that are secured on residential property funded substantially by their own members? 

How else can the young families of the future avoid being trapped in unfinished estates bearing burdensome loan liabilities on terms that are utterly unsustainable, even in a recovered economy?

Hare-brained proposal from Fine Gael

The party that sought out a genius to stand in a by-election but couldn’t keep him on the pitch until game time has come up with a hare-brained proposal to meddle with the office of president.

The proposals include reducing the minimum age of candidates from 35 years to 18 years; to limit the span of a presidential term from 7 years to 5 years and to conduct presidential elections contemporaneously with local and European elections.

The age reduction suggestion is absurd.  The presidency requires an incumbent who is mature, eminent, erudite, experienced in life and capable of epitomising both the legacy and aspirations of the nation.  Those qualities are unlikely to be found in a super-star that has graduated from a crèche but whose formation as an adult is incomplete.  A vision of a president bearing tattoos, facial studs and wearing a shell suit is unlikely to enhance the stature of the nation.

The ‘massive cost-saving’ achievable by holding presidential elections on the same day as local and European Parliament elections is illusory.  There have been 12 occasions when Ireland had to decide on a candidate for president but on 6 of these there was no contest.

The presidency is perhaps the only elected office of State in this country that operates to a standard sufficiently high that incumbents for several decades have enjoyed high public approval ratings.  The moral for Fine Gael is therefore ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’!  Political capital is a scarce and valuable resource that must be used wisely.  Fine Gael would be better off advocating the speedier arraignment of criminal bankers and ensuring that those bankers tainted with failure and incompetence are no longer venerated with political patronage as a social rehabilitation exercise.

Dirty, dilapidated and jaded Dún Laoghaire

Has the ‘get-up-and-go’ of Dún Laoghaire simply ‘got-up-and-gone’?

Centre of Dun Laoghaire

 

There is something unique about being out and about early on a Sunday morning. No traffic, vehicular or pedestrian and little noise or bustle to thwart one’s perception. Shortly after daybreak this morning I walked along the High Street of Dún Laoghaire – Upper and Lower Georges Street, Cumberland Street, and Crofton Rd.

A High Street is a metonym for the primary business district of a town – typically its principal retail zone which ought to reap the economic benefit of its hinterland.  It could be regarded as the vital organ, beating heart, or smiling face of a confident community; a community with a definite sense of purpose; a community with a clear identity and an awareness of its potential as well as its past.

Champs Élyées serves this purpose in Paris as does Newbury Street in Boston, Oxford Street in London, 5^th Avenue in New York and Castle Street in Dalkey. Dún Laoghaire has its share of poverty and distress but it is not an economically deprived ghetto wasteland!  Yet a Martian could form that opinion by strolling along its High Street.

Dún Laoghaire is the county town of county of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, a county with its own 28-member council and an electorate of over 150,000 persons. 

Dún Laoghaire occupies a unique position in our national makeup. The first railway in Ireland was opened between Dublin and Dún Laoghaire in 1834. Its magnificent granite harbour took 42 years to complete and has been an important gateway to Ireland for passenger ferries and ships since 1859. The modern harbour has been the recipient of much investment – several marinas, four active yacht clubs and a newly developed terminal used by Stena Lines for its fast ferry service to Holyhead.  But it is the High Street that radiates the soul of a place.

The town itself expanded in the Victorian and Edwardian era as a desirable residential suburb. It continues to be a much sought after location in which to live, offering plenty of amenities, long established and well thought of schools and most agreeable coastal scenery and other attractive natural resources.

But there is now a plethora of dirty, litter-laden, vacant retail premises in this vicinity with chewing gum embedded on the adjacent footpath. The High Street seems to attract nothing other than hucksters outlets, discount stores, fast-food outlets, charity shops and various transient enterprises, mostly offering low-value junk. There is hardly a brand name over a shop front that would be recognised in an adjacent postal district.  The epicentre of retailing never reached this town. Nowadays, nearby Dundrum has overtaken and overshadowed it with its modern town centre the main showpiece.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is not deprived of political influence. Its two Fianna Fáil TD’s include a cabinet minister (Mary Hanafin) and a Minister who attends government meetings (Barry Andrews).   Twenty of the 28 council seats are filled by Fine Gael and Labour members – the parties who aspire the form the backbone of the next government. The current Cathaoirleach of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is Marie Baker.  She has represented the Blackrock Ward since 2004 and managed to spearhead an increase in her party’s share of the poll in the most recent local elections from 27% to 39%.  That vote of confidence now needs  be reciprocated with effective leadership and genius.  There is also an active Chamber of Commerce whose mission is to promote the town, but can it do no more than make a silk purse from a sow’s ear?

It is surprising, given this ambition, that Fine Gael and Labour don’t demonstrate a capacity to govern effectively at local level. Nothing demonstrates such a capacity more than the vitality of the High Street. Robert Mugabe would be embarrassed by the High Street of Dún Laoghaire.

I was saddened and surprised to observe 
two large Fine Gael local election posters, now obsolete for 4 months, adorn one of the litter-laden, spider infested vacant shops. What a gesture of civic indifference!  Come on, have they no pride?

Delinquent banks and economic recession have made their mark but there is no relationship between using a yard brush to clean a High Street premises and water to wash its facade with the economic downturn. Owners who neglect High Street properties ought to be heavily fined.  Political indifference is a symptom of a lazy, myopic, indolent culture. How could an electorate be convinced that those who control the country council are fit the govern the nation when the jewel in the county crown is a heap of neglected shit? ‘A fairer Ireland’, how are you!

The fact that this morning I passed the body of a dead man lying face down on the footpath outside the entrance of St Michael’s Hospital on Crofton Road merely added to the overall spectre of a town that itself is dead and awaiting a shroud.

There are several excellent public buildings in town.  The original County Hall has been skilfully extended and the old and new structures are seamlessly integrated – as it the case with the Boston Public Library on Boylston Street. 

The Harbour Authority occupies an outstanding landmark headquarters overlooking the Harbour..

 

 

The new ferry terminal is magnificent, as is the newly constructed headquarters of Irish Lights.

But my vote in the next general election will be influenced by the party, or parties, that demonstrate a convincing capacity to govern. I am no longer won over by hysteria, shibboleths or clichés!  My litmus test will be the vitality of Georges Street.

Where to now for Sinn Fein in Dublin?

THE President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams MP MLA, in a interview with Michael Moriarty Northern Editor of The Irish Times on 8 August stated that regaining lost ground in Dublin “is ultra-important because if you can get a critical active campaigning organisation there you are likely to get more publicity, to get the media exposure and so on”. What’s been happening to Sinn Féin in Dublin?

The 2002 general election was the first since The Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Féin won 40,450 first preference votes in Dublin and won Dáil seats in Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West and the successful candidate there topped the poll and surpassed a quota. Candidate stood in all 11 Dublin constituencies. Two of these, Larry O’Toole and Dessie Ellis, were established members of Dublin City Council. O’Toole polled 3,003 votes in Dublin North-East to secure fifth place in that 3-seater. Ellis polled 4,781 votes to secure fourth place in the Dublin North-West 3-seater – not a breakthrough on their local council vote.

The party polled 51,943 votes in the 2004 local elections in Dublin and secured 12.2% of all votes cast in the three Dublin local authorities. They performed slightly better north of the Liffey securing a 14.5% share of the vote compared to a 10.5% share south of the Liffey. Top vote getters O’Toole polled 4,497 votes in Artane and Ellis polled 4,300 votes in Finglas. Sinn Féin won 10 seats on Dublin City Council, 3 seats on South Dublin County Council, 1 seat on Fingal County County Council and none on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. However, four of their winners, O’Toole, Ellis, Kehoe and Forde surpassed a quota in 2002 but Ellis was the only one to emulate this in 2004.

The 2004 European Parliament Election enticed a higher turnout in Dublin than in 1999. The valid poll increased from 286,684 votes to 421,897 votes. Mary Lou McDonald polled 60,395 votes and won the fourth of four seats. When McDonald stood as a candidate in Dublin West in the 2002 general election she polled 2,404 votes. She stood as a candidate in Dublin Central in the 2007 general election and polled 3,182 votes.

The 2007 general election resulted in a significant shrinkage in support for Sinn Féin. The party won 35,256 votes in the 11 Dublin constituencies – representing a 7% share of the Dublin vote and 16,687 fewer than in the previous general election. They secured just one Dáil seat that of Aengus Ó’Snodaigh in Dublin South-Central. He won the fifth seat with 4,825 votes, 776 fewer than in 2002. The vote of the star performed in 2002, Seán Crowe plummeted to 5,066. They lost ground in 9 of the 11 constituencies and particularly so in Dublin South-West (-8.1%), Dublin Central (-5.4%) and Dublin West (-3.2%). The extent of the overall downturn was consistent, north and south of the Liffey.

There was a further contraction in support in the 2009 local elections. A total of 36,241 votes were won in the three Dublin local authority areas compared to 51,953 votes in the previous local election – a 30% reversal in voter support.

Larry O’Toole’s star waned when he polled just 2,702 votes in Artane, just shy of a quota. Dessie Ellis also took a hit at the polls in Finglas when he won 3,263 votes compared to the 4,300 he won in 2004. They have five seats on Dublin City Council and would have had five if Councillor Christy Burke had not abandoned his 25-year stint as a Sinn Féin councillor and Councillor Louise Minihan had not opted to become an Independent on the grounds that she “no longer supports or believes in the party”.  While they had a winner in Cabra-Glasnevin in 2009, possibly as a consequence of the electoral travails of ‘the brudder’, Maurice Ahern, their vote in this area was down by 12.5%.  The endured a similar haircut in South-East Inner City and in Tallaght-Central, although Sean Crowe won a seat on the 9th count.

Mary Lou McDonald lost her bid to secure one of the 3 seats in the Dublin European Parliament election. Her vote dropped to 47,928 despite her elevation to the role of Vice President.

Summary of Sinn Votes in Dublin

	1st Preference Votes
2002 – General Election	40,450
2004 - Local Election	51,943
2004 – European Parliament Election	47,928
2007 – General Election	35,356
2009 – Local Election	36,241
2009 – European Parliament Election	47,928

Dublin by-elections

The two Dublin by-elections in 2009 did not any relief to the prevailing trend. While Councillor Christy Burke picked up 588 more votes than Mary Lou McDonald did in Dublin Central in the 2007 general election that compares to the 138 votes lost in the Dublin South by-election.

Floating Vote, general elections.

The floating vote in each of these elections caries quite significantly from one to another.

The floating vote between the two general elections as 13.4%. An extra 17,842 voters turned out in 2007 and 43,414 who voted in 2004 changed their vote in 2007.

The floating vote between the two sets of local elections was 85,357 – 20.1%. The losers were Fianna Fáil (30,490), Greens (13,871), Sinn Féin (15,702), Progressive Democrats – now obsolete (24,631), Socialists (663) and a lower turnout of 17,037 voters. Those who gained were Fine Gael (20,151) and Labour (27,157)

The floating vote between the two Euro elections was 16.3% in Dublin. The turnout was lower by 15,257 and the losers were Fianna Fáil (23,648), Labour (11,580), Sinn Féin (12,467) and Greens (21,359).

 

Vote transfer patterns, general elections

	2002	2007
North of the Liffey
Received	3,003	2,410
Gave	10,857	12,145
South of the Liffey
Received	3,831	3,708
Gave	11,974	9,233

 

 

This is a function of when a candidate is eliminated but the message is that there are relatively few votes being transferred to Sinn Féin. 

 

Mr Adams refers to future ambitions in the context of they being ‘a long haul’. I wonder do the electorate in the State have the same attitude to Sinn Féin as the electorate in Northern Ireland have to candidates sponsored by the Tories and the Labour Party.

There is much soul searching to be done and I reckon that the electorate need more to stimulate them than the sight of Martin Ferris TD greeting and facilitating two convicts on their release from Castlerea Prison at the conclusion of their sentence for killing Garda Jerry McCabe on duty.