Category: Irish Politics

The Curious Case of Patrick Jameson/Eamonn Murphy #RepealThe8th

~ jlpagano

This is a mind-boggling sequence of events that further illustrates how the public debate surrounding the upcoming Citizens Assembly and (hopefully) subsequent #RepealThe8th referendum will transpire.

First up we have the undercover work done by the Irish edition of the London Times where they visited the so-called “Women’s Clinic” on Berkeley St not far from the Mater Hospital in Dublin.  As the Times is a pay-newspaper, we link instead to the Indo article titled “Secret recordings reveal Dublin pregnancy centre advising women that abortion leads to breast cancer“.

While attending the clinic undercover, the reporter’s mental state was called into question by the counsellor. The reporter was shown also pictures of aborted foetuses and asked if she thought it was fair on the foetus to have an abortion.

Then we have just over half an hour on Joe Duffy’s Liveline show that has to be heard to be believed.  In it the director of the clinic, a Patrick Jameson, was afforded the opportunity to present his side of the story.

For the duration of the segment he repeatedly talks over Joe as well as everyone else who dared to come on to speak.  H referred to a website abortionbreastcancer.com at least half a dozen times, one which is clearly maintained by a Pro-Life group based in the USA and he goes on to reject anything said by the media (because according to him all members of the NUJ are instructed to be Pro-Choice) and the vast majority of peer-reviewed medical research (because according to him the American Cancer Society is a “corrupt” organization).

To be fair to Joe, he gave the man plenty of time to air his side of the story, such as it was.  Basically for half an hour you hear the terms “abortion” and “breast cancer” used several times in close proximity to each other.  If nothing else it would almost have you believing there was a link.  There’s a decent account of the exchange in this article on The Journal.

When challenged on the issue, he told Duffy: “You can’t handle the truth”. People in Ireland are “being deceived because of the media spin”, he claimed.

One thing the Journal doesn’t touch on, however, is that towards the end of the segment Duffy asks Jameson if he has heard of a gentleman called Eamonn Murphy.  Jameson doesn’t even acknowledge that he has been asked the question.

In a follow-up segment the next day, Duffy has a few callers on who seem to think that Jameson himself was actually this Eamonn Murphy, who ran in national and European Elections for organizations that appear to have had numerous guises such as the “Christian Centrist Party”.

Finally, to the reaction of staunch so-called Pro-Life advocate Breda O’Brien, she who loves to bemoan the lack of media coverage from her movement despite her regular columns in the Irish Times.

Yesterday in her piece “The amazing hypocrisy of the pro-abortion lobby“, while rejecting the ludicrous claims of this clinic, she also does an excellent job exaggerating the media response to them while then undervaluing their reaction to reports that medical advice was being given to patients to avail of an “abortion pill” as well as lying to their doctors about having had an abortion.

A couple of years ago, Gemma O’Doherty, one of Ireland’s most courageous and tenacious journalists, broke a story about allegations that Irish Family Planning Association crisis pregnancy counsellors were advising clients to break the law. She heard and viewed tapes of counsellors (procured in a sting operation) advising people how to import the so-called abortion pill via NorthernIreland. The IFPA did not question the veracity of the tapes.

Those pieces of advice amount to “breaking the law” according to O’Brien.  While technically true, it hardly qualifies as a counter argument against blatantly deliberate misinformation being given at a premises purporting to be a “clinic”.  And what’s more, patients are being advised to lie about their terminations because of the fear of being prosecuted under laws which are currently being challenged by a significant movement among citizens known as #RepealThe8th.

We need a referendum now.  We’re not going to get it now.  Instead we’re going to get a “Citizens Assembly” to decide whether or not we can have a referendum.  The composition of this assembly needs to be put under the closest scrutiny possible.

This is going to be a long, difficult road, with a small, curiously-well-funded minority blocking the path.

 

 

 

A must-read perspective on #AppleTax

~ jlpagano

An article by an Irish Economics expert that fully lays out the #AppleTax situation without towing the government line or simply spelling out what public services can be bought with a sum like €13billion is our kind of article.

Terrence McDonough is a retired professor of economics at the National University of Ireland, Galway and co-editor of Contemporary Capitalism and Its Crises: Social Structure of Accumulation Theory for the Twenty-First Century.

His article appears in the American left-wing quarterly Jacobin and is titled “Ireland’s Bad Apples” and puts a very interesting spin on the reaction of our government to the European Commission’s ruling, particularly that of the “Churchillian” Michael Noonan.

It often seemed like Irish politicians believed they should represent Europe to the Irish people rather than represent the Irish people in Europe. But it turns out their cozy relationship with Europe was weaker than their romance with a major American multinational corporation.

Well worth a read.  Many thanks to Joan Collins TD for sharing.

Claire Byrne skewers Richard Bruton with question tying #AppleTax to #Right2Water

~ jlpagano

Earlier today we commented on the general mainstream media and how they fail to provide proper balance and ask the right questions.  It is only fair that we also highlight the times we feel they actually DO it.

Many thanks to “FunnyOldWorld” on SoundCloud for posting this snippet from the Claire Byrne Live show this week as she interviewed FIne Gael’s Scapegoat In Chief Richard Bruton…

“Europe is messing with our sovereignty is what you’re saying…”

“Europe is totally messing with our sovereignty…”

” So why didn’t you say that when they asked us to bring in water charges?”

Brilliant.  We love you Claire.

Any hope for unity in the Irish Left takes another serious blow

~ jlpagano

We don’t like the terms “left” and “right” here at FPP but often we have no choice but to use them – especially in anything to do with Irish politics, where there has never been a Taoiseach who could remotely describe themselves as “left” (as hard as Bertie tried).

Basically, the “Irish Left” may be an entity, but it has absolutely no unity.  The Labour Party would consider themselves to the forefront, but in recent times they have drawn so close to the “establishment” ranks that they can at best be known as “centrist” now.

Which leaves The Socialist Party.  And People Before Profit.  And the Anti Austerity Alliance.  And the Greens.  And Sinn Féin, apparently.  And a smattering of independents.

Then there’s the Social Democrats.  For the purposes of this post we don’t want to concern ourselves with the circumstances behind Stephen Donnelly leaving the party (though if you are interested you can click here for the Indo’s take).  The fact remains that they have been in existence for just over a year and had three quality TDs with a hope of gaining even more down the line.  Now already one is gone.

Statement by the Social Democrats regarding the departure of Stephen Donnelly T.D.

Stephen Donnelly T.D. has informed us that he is leaving the Social Democrats.

We are disappointed that he has decided to walk away from the project, we undertook, to establish and build the Party.

The Executive Committee of the Party has reaffirmed its commitment to the vision of a strong economy, fair society and honest politics.

What an absolute shambles.  These politicians should be working together not apart.  In the Monty Python movie “The Life Of Brian” they made a joke about all the splinter movements like “The People’s Front of Judea” and the “Judean People’s Front”.  The left wing of Irish politics is making that joke into a reality, and has done for years.

Until they find a way to come together with the common goal of breaking the Civil War Duopoly, making those two identical parties finally merge and offering a realistic  alternative for the Irish people that prioritises things like health, education and housing over the continued widening of the income inequality gap, it will be “Politics As Usual” on this small island.

 

“Secrets of a Global Super Court” : essential reading to understand why we need to #StopTTIP

~ jlpagano

In the ongoing #AppleTax debacle one of the most common themes used by both Apple and the Irish government is that the ruling of the European Commission is essentially an “attack on our sovereignty”.   If they truly believe that, they must also surely be unified against the ISDS courts due to be used by the TTIP and other such proposed treaties should they come into effect.

According to reports, resistance from both France and Germany could ensure the TTIP doesn’t go ahead, but still I reckon it’s vitally important that the wider public appreciates just exactly what the proposed treaty entailed because I very much doubt the multinationals corporations are going to give up and not try to force something similar through down the line.

Thanks to the latest episode of the excellent Democracy@Work podcast featuring Richard Wolff, we have discovered a series of articles by Chris Hamby on Buzzfeed which expose exactly what these so-called super-courts are all about, who comprises them, and what kind of rulings they have made in the past.

The series kicks off like this :

Imagine a private, global super court that empowers corporations to bend countries to their will.

Say a nation tries to prosecute a corrupt CEO or ban dangerous pollution. Imagine that a company could turn to this super court and sue the whole country for daring to interfere with its profits, demanding hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars as retribution.

I urge you to read on.  There are four articles in total.  The third one is about Sri Lanka but should still be of particular interest to Irish readers.

Inside The Global “Club” That Helps Executives Escape Their Crimes

The Secret Threat That Makes Corporations More Powerful Than Countries

How Big Banks Bled A Tiny Island Nation

How America’s Gift To Trade Treaties Can Come Back To Hammer It

Has an Irish media outlet conducted a similar investigation?  A Google search of “ISDS” under the “Country : Ireland” setting produces nothing from national newspapers, if that means anything.

How RTÉ reported #AppleTax on Nine O’Clock News

~ jlpagano

Here at FPP we’re not just concerned with what happens, but also how it is reported by mainstream media.  So here is the first of our “report on reports”.

Overall, our analysis of their coverage of the story seems to be one leaning more heavily toward #TeamAppeal.  While there was a fair amount in favour of the #TeamKeep argument it was presented as more of an afterthought.

The lead report was filed by Tony Connelly.  Basically he laid out the facts surrounding made by the European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager.

Next it was on to the reactions from the Irish Government and Apple itself, as if you could tell the two opinions apart.  Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said the ruling was on “tenuous grounds” and that the Irish govt had done “nothing illegal”.  They read a statement from Apple saying the Commission was “rewriting history” and that they had “complied with tax laws”.

The text of the RTE report went on to speak of the “fundamental differences” between the Irish govt and the EU and using words like “sovereignty” and “taxpayers”.

Next up we had “Economic correspondent” Sean Whelan who laid out the amount of tax paid by Apple and how they diverted it into a “Head Office” that didn’t actually exist.  This is precisely what Vestager did in her announcement by the way, only Whelan had some fancy graphics on display behind him as aids.

Now it was time to go to “outside experts”.  First, speaking for #TeamAppeal was Brian Keegan from Chartered Accountants Ireland, who basically said there was no way we should keep  the money.  Then arguing for #TeamKeep was Dr Jim Stewart – the graphic just had “Trinity College” by his name but it wouldn’t have hurt to add that he is Associate Professor in Finance (Business & Administrative Studies) there.

Eventually we get to the reaction of the other Irish parties.  Fianna Fail (who had a soundbite from spokeperson Michael McGrath TD) and Labour (no soundbite) came out on #TeamAppeal.  The other “left-wing” parties are firmly on #TeamKeep and there were soundbites from Pearse Doherty of SF, Richard Boyd Barrett of PBP and Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats.

The most important reaction will be that of the so-called “Independent Alliance” that is currently propping up the Minority Government along with the “silent partners” Fianna Fáil.  We had a brief soundbite from John Halligan but apparently their opinion would be made known to a Cabinet meeting the following day.

Finally the report went to two more RTE correspondents – David Murphy, who laid out the “morality issue” of the notion of the Irish government denying its own Exchequer and award of such size, and Martina Fitzgerald, who repeated the importance of the Cabinet meeting today.  Not sure if that reportage was a two-person job, but there you go.

Like I said earlier, I got the sense that this report was presented with a leaning more toward the #TeamAppeal side of things, much like Joe Duffy had done on his Liveline show earlier that afternoon on RTE radio.

To provide a bit more balance, perhaps they could have actually spoken to the Commissioner herself, as did American public broadcaster PBS NewsHour :

Any member state can have their own legislation we would never question that – but the thing is you cannot give a specific company a benefit or advantage.which is not open to other companies.

Sounds to me like a reasonable statement from someone with the job title European Commissioner for Competition?

Now to wait and see what happens next.  Paschal Donohoe was on today’s Morning Ireland and said the Dáil would not be brought back early from its recess so we’ll see how this morning’s Cabinet meeting pans out.

A strong case for #TeamKeep made by Fintan O’Toole #AppleTax

~ jlpagano

So just a few hours after that stunning EU ruling, which has effectively done a “Wikileaks” on Irish foreign investment policy over the past few decades, public opinion seems to have quickly evolved into a debate between #TeamKeep and #TeamAppeal.

No doubting what side the national public broadcaster is on.  Joe Duffy had a few dissenting voices in his half-hour’s coverage today but miraculously his supposedly “reliable” text poll produced an impressive 56% support of appealing the ruling by “over 3000” of his listeners.

In general the thrust of the #TeamAppeal argument is that by keeping the money we’d be “penny wise, pound foolish”.  All of a sudden American multinationals will be fleeing the country like there’s no tomorrow and this in turn would doom our futures with all of the jobs and tax revenues that would go with them.

But what I say to that is…I’m sure if there was a national debate on the first of these “sweetheart deals” with Apple when they were made 25 years ago in 1991 (when the Minister of Finance job was held by Albert Reynolds up to November, Charlie Haughey for a week and Bertie Ahern from then on – it was Brian Cowen in 2007) we’d have been told about the importance of the investment in Ireland’s future.

Yet now, when there’s €13billion on offer, we want it to help our schools, we want it to help our hospitals, we want it to help our housing crisis.  Just how sweet a deal for us was that which they made back in 1991?  Where was the real benefit?

But look…I’m not the one to make the case for #TeamKeep.  I’d rather leave that to someone like FIntan O’Toole in the Irish Times :

At the very least, we should not be railroaded into lodging an appeal against the ruling that will define us, for the rest of the world, as the tax-avoider’s crazy little sidekick. We have some big thinking to do – and the cabinet’s job on Wednesday morning is to open up that process of deliberation, not to insist that any democratic decision that Apple does not like is unthinkable.

 

Irish Exchequer wins a Eurobillions jackpot but Minister for Finance wants to tear up the ticket #AppleTax

~ jlpagano

We do our best here at FPP to tread lightly when it comes to economics – it can be a complicated area to say the very least and often all is not as it appears.

But when we read some stories about this topic known as #AppleTax we seemed to think we had the basis of what it was all about, only we couldn’t believe it.

Then in an article titled “Q&A : What exactly is at stake in the Apple Tax issue?” the Irish Times pretty much spelled it out as we saw it…

Ironically, the Government will be appealing a decision that a big company must pay it a load of money.

Luckily, it appears that David McWilliams is on the case to explain things, and we generally give his take a lot of weight on Irish economic matters when of course the governments very much don’t.

While we wait for his take, we’re holding the assumption that this is yet another classic case of #CapitalismGoneMad.

 

A rare rose of a comment among the usual thorns on Journal.ie #RepealThe8th

~ jlpagano

Normally we find scrolling through the comments section on articles in the Journal to be akin to sado-masochism.  But once in a while, there is a rose among the thorns, pun fully intended.

The story in question is about an online petition organized by Saorlaith Ní Shuibhne from Cork which we posted about recently on the recent controversy involving the Rose of Tralee contest and the #RepealThe8th movement.  As it turned out the campaign received over 6000 signatures and the letter was sent in to RTE as promised.

When we looked down through the comments after the article on the Journal we saw the usual Pro Life v Pro Choice exchange, but we also noted that the vast majority of contributions were by men, and we added our own comment to this effect.

But right at the very top there was this comment by Fintan of Laois which we thought was worth a share…

It’s amazing that anyone can turn a hair when an obviously intelligent modern young woman remarks that she’d like to see Irish women having the same rights concerning their own reproductive systems as their sisters in most of the civilised world already enjoy.

Well done to her for highlighting this remaining vestige of the power that a corrupt, discredited and hypocritical religious cult once abused in so many ways in Ireland.

Given that David Quinn and Breda O’Brien, both obnoxious and pathetic in equal measure, devoted their respective weekly columns in the Indo and IT to condemning the young Australian women, it is clear how the Iona “institute” and other far-right, American Evangelical fundamentalist-financed lobby groups would love to see discussion of Ireland’s savage anti-woman legislation smothered.

There can be little doubt that they and their most ardent running dogs are behind the formal complaints, but they are only adding grist to the mill of those who want their odious cult to butt out of medical matters.

There can hardly be a day when Quinn, O’Brien and the other Ionanists wish they had never gotten their solicitors to threaten action over Panti calling them “homophobic” – which is a bit like calling the Pope a Catholic. RTÉ caved in, failed to tell them to take a hike, and gave them nearly €100,000 of your and my money.

But, as the SSM referendum result showed, they may have all that dosh in the bank, but they are still limping badly after shooting themselves in the foot.