Is Ciaran Cuffe lost in a ghost estate?

An excited Ciarán Cuffe, as opposed to an excitable Paul Gogarty, wrote on his blog about what he wanted to achive now that he had finished up his staycation on the Beara. There is a whole list of ambitious things to do, or just talk about. One of which was a review of the nationwide survey of ghost estates carried out by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, where Ciarán is whiling his time away as junior minister,  with the intention of coming up with a plan to put the empty houses in Ireland and the excess Irish hotel capacity to use.

One of the things he promised was by the end of September we should have "some good analysis completed, and be in a position to sit down with stakeholders and offer some positive advice on these issues."  

As the excellent Nama Wine Lake notes its now October 01st and neary a peep out of Minister Cuffe? Did he forget to do the work? Was he over excited after his holidays or is it just another sorry episode in the demise of the Greens - a party that made big promises about being in Government but when it got there didnt really know what to do. 

Is he waiting for permission from Fianna Fail or maybe Ciarán's still driving around a ghost estate wasted on the noxious fumes of planet Bertie. Save yourself some trouble Ciarán and get in contact with Sinn Fein to learn about solutions to the housing issue.

A Master class in spin

Today was a fairly normal day in Ireland. Nothing of note really happened did it!

Certainly nothing happened in comparison to the terrible news thats coming out of Haiti.

On every newspaper, television and radio station there is going to be wall to wall focus on the disaster. And we will all watch it. Not out of a morbid desire or some strange car-crash voyeurism but because as normal people we will watch this and feel a deep empathy and sorrow for the suffering of other people.

You'd think that most people would think the same. Well unfortunately they dont. Some people look at this as a useful disaster and they think every cloud has a silver lining.

Looking at BreakingNews.ie I was struck by a series of related posts.


At 12:25 Minister Mary Harney "announced the roll out of a bowel cancer screening programme which kills around 930 people here every year."

Hmm! Fair play the Govt. Doing the right thing. I am impressed.

But wait...there is more:

At 12:32 Mary Mary strides once more across the media like a colossus with another missive:

"The Health Minister has today announced that she is reversing the decision not to roll out the cervical cancer vaccine for secondary school students."

Oh! So they climbed down did they. But at least they are also doing the right thing. And so rather than this being a craven climb down we know have a positive cancer detection strategy. Rather than caving we now have Harney the leader. Aint she the bomb.

That this "leadership" was on the 1:00 news did no harm to Harney or the govt. A climb down became a positive and a problem was neutered. Best of all nobody was going to focus on this too much. Because of Haiti it was just accepted and the news moves on.

Next it was the turn of fellow Fianna Failer John Gormley.

No sooner was the 1:00 clock news show over than John boy was ready to roll. There was just enough time to make the tea and do the dishes after Dinner before he started his bit.

At 14:23 modernising John confirmed that "Dubliners will directly elect a Mayor this year.Environment Minister John Gormley has announced the capital's citizens will go to the polls in June. The job will command the same salary as a Government minister."

Who could not be impressed. This was the Greens as they want us to see them. The party modernising the southern state's dated institutions by coming up with a trendy Mayor idea. I was in awe but John didnt stop there. He was on his bike ...


At 14:46 decisive, honest, reforming John came out "to limit junkets for Councillors. Green Party leader John Gormley says he is determined to end the "abuse" of Councillors attending too many conferences."

Thats the kind of Greens we wanted to see. The Greens we once believed in etc etc. I could almost see myself voting Greens at the next election. Their story was beginning to get some traction at some level.The Greens love pretending they are a modernising force. And today they piled it on trying to get that message into our head.

But the coup de grace was at 18:25 because at that hour Breakingnews.ie reported that "Ireland is sending 80 tonnes of emergency supplies to Haiti following Tuesday's devastating earthquake.The aid will be distributed to 8,000 families through charities Concern and GOAL who are working on the ground there."

And thats only right and good to see but wait whats this at end:

"Some 35 members of the Government's Rapid Response Team are also on standby to travel to the stricken region."

The Governmant's Rapid reaction force? Excuse me? Who the hell is that? Or do they instead mean the southern Irish state's rapid reacion force. Because by christ whats it got to do with the those parasites sitting around the cabinet table. Still, pile it on! If it makes the govt. look good they'll do it.

Today Mary Harnney and John Gormley took advantage of a disaster to stack their messages so as to command attention at news time. Nothing could compare with Haiti but by stacking the messages they could command some air time and sell their messge to the people. Mary turned a negative into a positive and Gormley used today to reboot his parties image and once more push out the message that the Greens are reforming and modernising.

Is this nasty. Yeah of course it is but by god they are slick operators.

Today was a master class in media and ultimately voter manipulation.

Link Backs: Political Messages

The Greens - First yellow and now blue.

Some fairly despicable comments were passed in leinster house recently. But enough about the budget. At least we had the Greens -an Comhaontas Glas, the supposedly ethical heart, if any remains, of this govt.

Well I am not so sure about ethical considering their masterful performance over the last year. Seems like these days the Greeens are following the PDs into the same nasty, unethical politics.

Deputy Gogarty, with his nice big salary feels your pain and knows what its like. As the man explained:

"It is hard for me to gratuitously insult many of my constituents who are public sector employees and tell them: “Listen, lads. It is necessary. I feel your pain but it is necessary”.
...

"It would be highly disingenuous of me and totally insincere, therefore, to say anything other than that this is a grossly unfair section and that the Bill is grossly unfair."
...
"I am not proud of what has happened, I am not proud of the fact the banks had to be bailed out, of the corruption and worship of mammon in this country that has brought us to this sorry state, I am not proud of that, colleagues"

And then after some more raiméis we had that moment:



Deputy Gogarty, I look forward to the day when your constituents tell you in the most unparliamentary language to Fu*K off, with all due respect, Fu#k off.

Magic Numbers in the southern Media.

Magic Numbers.

I've been trying to read up on my economics. While its always been a relevant subject and necessary for anyone who has an interest in progressive politics its really hit the limelight now.

The dismal science has many arcane and complex theories.

Two of which were discovered by the southern media.

The first is TINA - There Is No Alternative. Its the southern media's catch all theory thats applied once exhaustion sets in. Its most recent outing has been with Nama.

But the second is economics at its best. Its the Magic Number theory.

First I learned of it was yesterday in the Sunday Tribune. Shane Coleman, Political editor and dabbler in economic theory was the man of the moment.

In a rather long article questioning whether Fine Gael and Labour had the bottle to make difficult budgetary choices Mr. Coleman was determined to set the scene early.

The first words were: It's the €4bn question. Now when I did my leaving cert in english we were told avoid repetition, dont hack away at the same point. Did anyone tell Shane?

Repeatedly the number of €4 billion in cuts is the number bandied about. Over and over again Shane hacks away telling us that "The closer it comes to the budget, the closer Fine Gael's proposals to produce the magic €4bn will come under scrutiny." And Fine Gael can be sure that its proposals will come under scrutinity but since when did all budgetary policy become defined by the number 4 billion.

Shane lists a number of various opposition party measures to cut expenditure but guess what as none of these hit 4 billion then well they just dont do it.

There will have to be budgetary cut backs. The economy is going to need to be restructured. Its going to be rough and hard and we all know it but the southern state is not best served by journalists who become fixated by numbers without taking the time to consider what the numbers mean. Just because the Fianna Fail/Green govt. sets a target does not mean its correct and anyone who fails to hit it is wrong. If the various economic plans of the opposition parties are focussed, credible and purposeful then thats the mark of a good plan.

The mark of a good plan is not picking a number and slashing and burning till you get there. Magic aint real Shane and picking the magic numer of 4 billion simply because its the wheeze of the moment aint much of a trick and its certainly not a useful contribution to the debate.

Maybe one day in the south we'll get a media that takes the time to think for itself rather than just dribble out this nonsense.

An Alliance for change - What's that?

Eoin ó Broin, somebody I have a lot of time for, wrote the following piece in An Phoblacht recently.

It is time for a politics of hope and purpose. It is time for a politics of change.

For today people need concrete proposals for economic and social recovery; for tomorrow, they need a vision for political and economic transformation.

In his Ard Fheis speech, Gerry Adams set out Sinn Féin's stall. He said, "Our society needs core values based on social justice, fairness, equality and decency." He said, "There can be an egalitarian alternative to the politics of greed, inefficiency, waste and corruption.

"Crucially, he said, "I believe the time is right for a new alliance of all people and parties that want real and fundamental change.

"In the South, this new alliance should involve Sinn Féin, Labour, the Greens, progressive independents, the trade union movement, the community and voluntary sector and all those individuals and organisations who believe that a better Ireland is possible.

However, such an alliance will not happen unless people take the decision to make it happen and invest the resources to match. Political will and effort - from Sinn Féin and others - will determine whether Gerry's Ard Fheis words are to become reality.
The Ard Fheis speech - Alternative politics in Ireland


All very hopeful words from Gerry and from Eoin about how we can build our influence in the South, but to me the meat lies in the final paragraph, " such an alliance will not happen unless people take the decision to make it happen .

"The question we must ask ourselves is do we really wish to make it happen? Are we prepared to go out and work with others? Are we ready to move away from election politics and towards working on a daily basis for real social change?

Since the Ard Fheis I have not seen any major evidence of SF working with other groups on major issues. So, why are we not holding meetings throughout the country and inviting others to join with us in creating an alliance for change.

Is it because we don't want to give me our splendid isolation? Is it because we fear nobody else will turn up? Is it because we don't know how to do it? Is it because the leadership has not shown us how?

I believe all the above answers are correct, but fxck it let's give it a go. In our local cumman we should go out and try and build something in the local area. Invite Labour, the greens, community groups, independents and most radically of all LOCAL PEOPLE. Have the meeting around jobs, local cuts, anything. Go out with the intention of forming some form of alliance for change and let's see where it takes us.

Let's not be afraid to fail, but let's dare to succeed