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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northern Ireland MPs spend less than £10k on ink in an full year

While the erudite and learned Rt Hon Aengus Ó’Snodaigh TD was helping himself to €50,000 worth of printer ink cartridges so as proliferate his constituency enclave with thought-provoking messages in 2007-08, it is relevant to point out that the sum spent on cartridges and printing ink by the Northern Ireland MPs in Westminster for the year to April 2011 was under £10,000.

The following summarises the individual claims:

Northern Ireland MPs	Spend on Ink and Toner £ April 2010 – March 2011
Ritchie, M	1,701.02
Dodds, N	373.86
Donaldson, J	795.39
Paisley, I	64.98
McDonnell, A	4,010.07
Wilson, S	1,266.40
Hermon, Lady S	256.95
Murphy, C	472.17
Simpson, D	59.45
Durkan, M	339.60
McCrea, W	646.68
TOTAL	£9,985.57

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MP	Stationary 2007-08  £	Postage 2007-08 £	MP Travel – 2008-09 Home /Constituency £
Adams, G	85.24	218.00	1,218.00
Campbell, G	290.66	1,337.50	19,878.00
Dodds, N	1,118.15	4,052.00	17,624.00
Doherty, P	210.31	621.75	1,302.00
Donaldson, J	1,168.77	3,176.00	17,785.00
Durkan, M	237.04	545.00	12,254.00
Gildernew, M	110.87	518.75	375.00
Silvia, Lady Hermon	356.26	2,660.00	6,404.00
McCrea, W	627.15	2,033.60	18,850.00
McDonnell, A	209.19	864.00	10,450.00
McGrady, E	466.31	1,140.00	14,640.00
McGuinness, M	0	0	598.00
Murphy, C	54.98	170.00	840.00
Paisley, I	305.42	1,624.50	4,361.00
Robinson, I	879.00	3,192.00	10,891.00
Robinson, P	287.80	1,354,50	12,438.00
Simpson, D	481.80	1,445.75	19,943.00
Wilson, S	630.59	2,259.00	19,979.00

 

There is a relative consistency, moderation and pausibility in the above that does not exist in the case of printer cartridges because if each TD was as needy as the Rt Hon and distinguished learned member for Dublin South Central the State would be paying €8.25 million.  That would be the fault of the Oireachtas – if nobody were to say ‘anything’ to ‘anybody’.

Ó’Snodaigh’s rapacious appetite for printer cartridges is implausible!

The value of the printer cartridges that Aengus Ó’Snodaigh TD of Sinn Féin is alleged to have taken from the Oireachtas is stated to be of the order of €50,000 and to have been sufficient to print 3 million pages. 

The Labour Party and Fianna Fáil spent less than €52,000 between them on the 2011 campaign, so how could second tier TD manage to use so many cartridges? 

There are 80,268 voters in Dublin South Central.  This printer cartridge trawl had the capacity to produce 3 million pages.  Is this delirious buffoon seriously alleging that each voter received 37 pages of text from him?  Ó’Snodaigh’s ranks eighth among Sinn Féin TDs after Adams, Doherty, Ó’Caoláin, MacLochlainn, Ellis, Crowe and Ferris - when the votes won are expressed as a percentage of quota.

Ó’Snodaigh spent a total of €14,061 in the 2011 general election campaign, of which €8,700 was reimbursed by the State.  He spent €23,500 in the 2007 campaign but he managed to win 2,000 more votes last year despite spending less money.

His spend in 2011 was equivalent to an average of €2.07 for each of the 6,804 first preference votes he won (80.2% of quota in Dublin S Central). The average expenditure by successful Sinn Féin candidates in that election was equivalent to €1.73 per vote won.  McDonald spent €4.51, Tóibín €3.02 and Colreavy €2.69 per vote won.

The breakdown of his spending in the 2011 campaign was:

Advertising	€ 806
Election Posters	6,103.91
General Printing	6,198.68
Office Stationary	688.75
Transport and Travel	220.00
Campaign workers	44.65
	€14,061

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the political parties spent a total of €68,975 on general printing in the 2011 campaign, of which Sinn Féin accounted for just €3,793.

Apart from his TDs salary of €92,672 he also received, tax-free allowances and reimbursements amounting to €52,565 (election expenses reimbursed €8,700, Parliamentary Standard Allowance €31,865 and Travel and Accommodation expenses of €12,000).  On top of that Sinn Féin received a Party Leader’s allowance last year of €893,432 as well as substantial funding under the Electoral Acts.

And he has the audacity to say that the Oireachtas is to blame for him taking so many cartridges because nobody cried ‘halt’!  What a wimp!

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.

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. 

Sinn Fein mystery tour to Lisbon departs

WHY IS it that it that foreign political entities so passionately seek to protect our Irish nation state from the thrall of Europe and the consequences of The Lisbon Treaty? Perhaps because they anticipate that there is a slight chance that the electorate will abandon their own singular sense of long term self-interest and climb aboard a rickety mystery train where the landmarks are ‘good or bad’, ‘black or white’, ‘pretty or ugly’; where prosperity is a UFO and chronic poverty and deprivation are the tribal badges of a what binds them in their eternal, infinite misery.

Last year we endured the histrionics of the Libertas enterprise that was going to wash over us with the cleansing characteristics of a surging Atlantic foam.  Libertas, naturally, sought legitimacy after the No argument prevailed in the first referendum. Their subsequent ambitions were  far-reaching.  They were not just going to conquer Ireland, but all of Europe from a fortress in Tuam, with a new political disposition in the European Parliament. But the Irish electorate as not as green as they are cabbage-looking and by the time local and European Parliament elections took place on 5 June, the time had come for Libertas to grab their Louis Vuitton luggage, board the Titanic, pay their enormous outstanding bills and disappear over the horizon.

Today, Sinn Féin launched its No campaign to save us from what they consider to be the toxic potential of the second Lisbon Treaty referendum on 2 October. They argue that it is ‘an out of date document that is bad for the Irish and European economy’. Don’t you always admire one-dimensional thinking and the old world of ‘black and white’, ‘good and bad’, win or lose’, ‘ma and pa’, ‘Fred and Wilma’, Barney and Beanie’. Imagine – the out of date document is ‘bad’.

How could a recession be used as scare tactic?  Perhaps through some, yet to be identified, by-product of voodoo concocted by a bearded bogyman.  Have you ever associated the leadership of that party with modernity? I reckon the ambition of the Irish electorate in on the prospects of recovery not the type of fossilising isolation endured by citizens of Albania, Myanmar and Zimbabwe

They are concerned by what they see as the ‘singular focus’ of the European Commission on competitiveness. Competitiveness, as a foundation to prosperity is ‘bad’. So what is ‘good’? Apparently a capacity to strategically intervene in the economy is ‘good’, but there is no elaboration of what intervention they have in mind? I guess this is another blind date; an instance of beauty really being in the eye of the beholder and the beholder being afflicted with advanced, untreated glaucoma.

What economic angel dust has Sinn Féin ever sprinkled to even tease the electorate that it is economically literate, that they understand the ambition of electorate or that they are remotely progressive or have the naked coherence to deliver anything of value to the electorate? Their advocacy of wealth creation is rather circumscribed so don’t expect any diversions down highways, byways or back lanes that could result in new jobs, new patents from research, increased international trade, a more vibrant tourist sector, a more sophisticated society, a €15 billion healthcare system that is not dysfunctional, enhanced confidence or a viable vision that is achievable. Perhaps they have become too suffocated with the economic doctrine of Robert Mugabe and his weakness for state intervention.

Their native Northern Ireland has an economy has a chronic dependence on state handouts and state employment but I have never detected a craving that this approach would be admired and desired in our own nation state.  The 30% decline in support for Sinn Féin in Dublin last June would imply that the electorate wishes to idolise some other lateral thinking political demigods for whom insular tribal clamminess is not a prerequisite rather than live in a cave waiting for the rain to stop.  It is simply not adequate to build a campaign on vacuous slogans. An electorate will examine what a political party is capable of achieving and what its accomplishment are.  The posturing of a ‘party of protest’ achieves nothing.  Society needs ‘do-ers’, not wafflers!

The UK Independence Party are also compassionately concerned about our wellbeing and the threat of a totalitarian super-state evolving “by deception, propaganda and outright lies”.  Indeed!  The search for virtue is endless!

Dublin European Parliament Election Postscript

Now that the dust has settled it is interesting to reflect who were the ‘king-makers’ in the Dublin European Parliament election on 5 June by comparing the vote transfers in 2009 with those of the previous Euro election on 11 June 2004

Electorate

The electorate in 2009 at 812,465, was slightly less than in 2004.  The total valid poll was lower at 406,630 compared to 421,897 in 2004.  As there were only 3 seats to be filled in 2009 the quota was higher at 101,658 compared to 84,380 last time.

Fianna Fail

The outgoing MEP, Eoin Ryan polled 55,346 in 2009, slightly less than the 61,681 he polled in 2004.  But his running mate this time, former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Eibhlin Byrne polled over 17,300 few votes than Ryan’s running mate last time, Royston Brady.  He never recovered ground and his widely predicted defeat materialised. Byrne was an excellent and gracious Lord Mayor but the tide against Fianna Fail was overwhelming.

Fine Gael

Gay Mitchell polled 96,715 votes this time and this was a real boost for Fine Gael in Dublin whose electoral efforts in the capital did not surpass 90,000 votes in the last several elections.  When he achieved quota on Count 4, half of Mitchell’s surplus of 2,755 votes went to Proinsias De Rossa but over 20% went to Eoin Ryan of Fianna Fail.

Labour

De Rossa’s polled a very credible 83,471 votes as a solo candidate.  He had a running mate in 2004, Ivana Bacik, who polled over 40,000 votes.

Green Party

Deirdre de Burca polled 19,086 votes, less than half the 40,000 votes the Greens have polled in greater Dublin in the past several elections.  Former Green Party MEP, Patricia McKenna, polled 17,521 votes in 2009, less than half of what she achieved as a Green Party candidate.  However, she stayed in the race longer than de Burca, having achieved over 4,000 second preferences from Simons, the Libertas candidate and 2,833 from de Burca.  Approximately 18% of deBurca’s second preferences went to Fianna Fail but only 9.6% of Fianna Fail transfers went to The Green Party

Sinn Fein

The votes were simply not there this time for Mary Lou McDonald,  She polled an exceptional 60,395 first preference votes in 2004 but this time she just polled 47,928 and never caught up. She got over 2,100 second preferences from de Burca and over 2,700 from McKenna.

Socialist Party

The sun and moon were perfectly aligned this time for Joe Higgins who won 0ver 50,000 first preferences in 2009 compared to the 23,218 he polled in 2004. He obtained a steady amount of second preference from the Independents and McKenna which helped put a margin of 2,800 votes between himself and McDonald when she dropped out at Count 6.  Higgins collected over 27,000 of her second preferences which meant that he was in the winners enclosure.

Dublin Euro Election, post mortem

The voters of Dublin have chosen Gay Mitchell (Fine Gael), Proinsias De Rossa (Labour) and Joe Higgins (Socialist Party) as their three new MEP’s on June 5th.  The media has been full of comment of winners and losers, victors and vanquished, the disappointed and forlorn.  Her is my perspective on the outcome in the Dublin Euro constituency:

 

	2004 Election	% Share of Poll	2009 Election	% Share of Poll
Electorate	821,723		812,465
Valid Poll	421,897		406,630
Quota	84,380		101,658
Fine Gael Mitchell	90,749	22%	96,715	24%
Fianna Fail Ryan Brady Byrne	61,681 36,269	13% 9%	55,346 18,956	14% 5%
Labour De Rossa Bacik	54,344 40,707	13% 10%	83,471	21%
Green McKenna deBurca	40,445	9%	19,086	5%
Socialist Higgins	23,218	6%	50,510	12%
Sinn Fein McDonald	60,395	14%	47,928	12%
Libertas Simons			13,514	3%
Independents McKenna Sweeney Despard Price Prenderville Doonan	5,352 4,813 2,071 1,853	2% 1% <1% <1%	17,521 3,583	4% 1%

 

Fine Gael

I speculated that if Mitchell obtained 100,000 votes that would be a real breakthrough in Dublin because they never surpassed 90,000 votes heretofore and are poorly organised and poorly represented in several parliamentary constituencies.  This election marks real progress.  Fine Gael now has 334 council seats throughout Ireland and 12 on Dublin City Council, a gain of 2.

Fianna Fail

A drop from 22% to 18% and a rout in the local elections and two by-elections is the reflection of a very angry electorate, many suffering severely as a consequence of the economic downturn and poor government economic management.  Ryan is a well respected politician but he bore the ire of the voters.  His running mate is completing a very successful year as Lord Mayor of Dublin. The number of councillors in Dublin has dropped from 12 to 6 and by over  100 throughout the country to 213.

Labour

Great strides in the local elections cannot mask a 2% drop in Euro support but De Rossa did well as a solo candidate.  While he has service in the European Parliament since 1989 he is not universally known throughout the county.  Labour captured a third of the Dublin city vote in the local elections and are the largest party in Dublin City Council with 19 seats.

Greens

They are suffering the consequences of being a coalition partner in a thoroughly unpopular government and also lost all of its 9 council seats in Dublin. 

Sinn Fein

The 2004 vote was a high watermark that was not sustainable in 2009. They lost 3 of their 10 seats on Dublin City Council.

Socialist Party

Higgins more than doubled his vote but is this surprising when the Live Register exceeds 400,000?  He is regarded as being very committed to his particular perspective.

Libertas

Rejected by the electorate following an anaemic campaign by Simons.  The upstart organization had a substantial seat target across Europe but managed to have only one outgoing French MEP re-elected.  Its tears for the great vision.

Independents

McKenna’s star is on the wane and she is jaded.  The promise she presented as a Green Party candidate failed to inspire.

Name recognition in Irish politics

Research published by the ESRI last week has revealed that individuals whose names do not have a traditional Irish identity are twice as unlikely to be called for a job interview when they respond to a job advertisement, even if their qualities and qualifications match in all other respects those of a native respondent.

Name recognition is also an important consideration in politics. Sometimes it is the very uniqueness of a name that is important. Take the US presidency, for example. How many times have you hear the name Eisenhower, Roosevelt, Obama being borne by anyone other than His Excellency, the President of the United States? Mhoosajee Bhamjee was also a mould breaker when he won a Labour seat in Clare in the 1992 landslide election for that party. He is also the only Muslim elected to the national parliament.

Name differentiation can help to differentiate an incumbent from an aspirant in the voters mind but it can also cause political inbreeding, inertia and all of the infertile appalling consequences that ensue from this. “if there is a problem it is attributable to something far away”

It will cost over €137 million to run the Leinster House enterprise in 2009 – 44% more than it did just five years ago borne by the same headcount of politicians. There is no question of our democracy being run on a shoestring but it is important to maintain a sense of perspective and insight.

There are a total of 226 members in the two Houses. The annual overhead is just shy of €607,000 per member, – excellent value when considered as being merely one quarter of the 2008 remuneration of the abundantly superannuated Mr. Michael Fingleton, whose self-indulged, loss-making, speculators’ enterprise the taxpayer is now expected to bail out!

Apart from their own salaries, which cost €22.7 million, a further €18.7 million will be spent on secretarial support. A sum of €6.4 million is spent on travel which works out as an average of almost €44,000 per Dáil Deputy and €31.500 per Senator.

There are no fewer than 92 members of the 30^th Dáil who bear the same surname since the first Dáil met on 19 January 1919 and the first Seaned met on 11 December 1922.

Many are blood relatives or descendants but some bearing the same surname have no direct relationship to each other. There are others who are related to each other but do not share a similar surname.

The surname among the 20 most popular Irish surnames that has had no bearer in the Houses of the Oireachtas is the name Murray.

There have been 20 Ryans’, 16 Lynches, 16 Byrnes’ and 14 O’Sullivans’ who have represented the nation.

There have also been 11 Kennedys’, 10 O’Reilly’s, 10 O’Briens’, 9 Collins, 9 Doyles’, 9 O’Connors’ and 9 Higgins’.

The presence of Bradys’, Burkes’, Hogans’ and Hayes’ was made 8 clan members.

The remaining surnames with multiple appearances in the Oireachtas are:

2	3	4	5	6	7
Bruton Burton Cowen Cregan Cullen D’Arcy Deasy Dempsey Devins Dooley English Enright Fahey Ferris Flanagan Fleming Gogarty Gormley Killeen Naughton O’Dowd Roche Sheehan Sherlock Timmins Tracey Upton Wallace White Woods	Aylward Brennan Calleary Conlon Flynn Hanafin Haughey Kitt Martin McEllistrim McGinley Mitchell Moloney Mulcahy Noonan O’Dea O’Rourke	Allen Ahern Andrews Breen Browne Carey Coughlan Kenny Lenihan McGuinness McHugh Moynihan Nolan O’Donoghue Power Smith Wall	Barrett Costello Fitzpatrick Kelly O’Keeffe O’Mahony	Ahern Healy Quinn	Gallagher McGrath

The Sinn Féin Candyfloss School of Economics Fails to Convince

The School of Candyfloss Economics concentrates on the distribution of politically confiscated wealth. But it offers few ideas when it comes to the creation of productive wealth. Ireland very much needs insights into this having relied excessively and, to its ultimate detriment, on the creation of wealth through property and asset inflation and the acquisition of this through serial leveraged transactions.

The petticoat of the Sinn Féin Candyfloss School of Economics when raised slightly was less than inspiring in an opinion article by Mary Lou McDonald, vice-president, in The Irish Times on Friday, 13th March. She wants to form a new alliance and offer an 'egalitarian alternative’. A second No vote by Ireland in the Lisbon Treaty would of course expedite this goal. All of us would be equally poor, destitute. terminally unemployed and utterly bereft.

This egalitatian ambition is characterised by a potential orgy of additional public sector expenditure, platitudes about job retention and job creation. But there is not a single observation as to what type of productivity-enhancing, market focused, initiatives that are also cost-effective and economically viable, would sustain this dream. Does it ever dawn on these people that there really is no such thing as pure egalitarianism or absolute equality. These are relative terms and their achievement, to the extent that this is possible, does not exclusively depend on politicians, however indispensible they feel their contribution is and this usually involves a caricature of a nanny state, in one configuration or another. But the desirability of the State becoming 'the nipple of the nation' is as desirable as the caricature of ministers' of state having all the imperious bearing and grandeur of heads' of minor African states.

The scrapping of the public sector levy is proposed as well as ‘fundamental tax reform’. This might sound attractive to individuals like me who are subject to this levy. However, there is not as much as a single mention of how wealth based on real productivity might be created and rewarded. How can government expenditure be funded if there is no underlying wealth created to sustain it? Too much of Ireland’s wealth has been attributable to a false premise, specifically, the appreciation of property values at a breathless rate the consequences of which are now almost bankrupting the country. This was made possible by banks lending to people they should not have lent to and and borrowers who didn't have the means of repaying the capital borrowed and the associated interest. It has even been disclosed that the fund that provides welfare support will run out of resources by next year. This is funded by PRSI remittances.

Sinn Féin speak of ‘balanced public spending’ and ‘sensible borrowing’. What does this really mean? What borrowing ceiling is envisaged given prevailing economic circumstances and increased levels of State debt? Who will provide this money and at what cost? How credible a borrower would a government containing a Sinn Féin component have with potential lenders and those whose influence potential lenders heed?

Sinn Féin want to ensure that bank credit becomes available to sustain small and medium-sizd businesses. But in a world credit system that migrated from being dysfunctional to non-functioning and consumers have simply stopped spending, how is this to be accomplis

Job retention and job creation are mentioned. A job creation plan, detailed cost proposals and targets do not in themselves stimulate employment. They have as much potency as a bishop's apology for the deeds of a paedophile priest. Plans and targets merely offer incidental context that may, or may not, be relevant or useful. Furthermore, if the jobs’ ambition is merely on the 164,952 jobs that have been lost to date it could mean that the thousands of job losses that are sadly pending are not factored into the School of Candyfloss Economics policies. What will the the source of the anticipated jobs?

The suggestion that borrowing should be for strategic investment and be time-limited probably ought to be described in the first paragraph of Economics for Greenhorns. Who ever heard of a lender offering loans that are not ‘time limited’?

Why would Sinn Féin wish to ‘stop illegal evictions’? Illegal evictions are derring-do of neighbourhood mobs so perhaps they intend to resist their own racketeer or mobster elements.

Ending tax shelters, ending tax exile status, the overhaul of tax reliefs and the avoidance of tax evasion by the wealthy are awesome ideas but not exactly original or practical. Given that we live in a free society with guarantees of freedom of movement, how would Sinn Féin respond if all the categories they seek to impose greater tax burden on simply move out of this jurisdiction? The sandpit could empty very quickly and there would be nobody left to play with the train set.

I think that Sinn Féin have a great deal of political growing up to do in this Republic before they convincingly persuade those outside their core supporters that they offer a credibile, competent dynamic alternative governing option. They also need to escape the chains of their rhetoric and realise that empty shibboleths do not convince those who seek genuine and potentially sustainable change. The votes of floating voters are hard earned. All political parties need to convince a sceptical and distressed electorate that their ideas to restore competitiveness in Ireland are credibile and that productive wealth can be generated and rewarded. When that has been done it would then be time to cost and prioritise the initiatives that will lead to the type of society that each of them dream about.!