Tag Archives: Labour

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This afternoon

Royal Society of Antiquaries Ireland, Society House Dublin.

Labour TD Kevin Humphreys, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Alex White (right) and Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly launching the Climate Action Legislation Bill.

The bill will provide a statutory basis for Ireland’s “transition to a low carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy  WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER by the year 2050″.

Yay.

Earlier: Dan Boyle on ‘A  Climate Of Ignorance’

(Sam Boal/Rollingnews)

Update:

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You’ve had your fun.

Give it back.

(Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie)

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Prospective Labour Senator Maria Cahill

Further to criticism by Catherine McCartney, whose brother Robert was murdered by the IRA in 2005, over the past of Seanad Labour candidate of Maria Cahill.

Mark Malone writes:

Labour’s appointment [of Mairia Cahill as a seand candidate] isn’t just cynical in that it’s a transparent move against Sinn Féin. It is deeply inauthentic in relation to survivors of abuse and those campaigning for a meaning framework for justice and truth in the north.

I can stake no possible claim of understanding the specifics of Mairia Cahills decision to run as a Labour Senator. And its pretty understandable why she wants to land punches on Sinn Féin.

Though if feels and looks like Labour’s play here actually results in creating hierarchies of victims around the ‘troubles.’ This is precisely what is important about the perspective Catherine McCartney bring in her statement. She says:

“It is vital for victims’ families, fighting for truth and justice to be entitled to work with elected representatives who should operate from a position of integrity and independence”

Cahills appointment to the Seanad.

“leave(s) us isolated from those political parties who support this nomination”

In a statement to all sitting TD’s and Senators she expanded on this point.

“I fail to understand how a family like our own can ask political parties to hold SF to account regarding matters of truth and justice, (issues which remain at the forefront of peace process) whilst at the same time those parties ask no questions of Ms Cahill, and provide no answers to the public.”

It‘s up to Labour to disprove the widely held belief that the appointment is really poorly thought out opportunism. Yet that itself wouldn‘t rescue it from a fairly simple truth.

The main political parties in the south, and Labour in this instance hold up the grimness of war, and the very often brutal experiences of our fellow humans on this island, as tokens and faux currency for their own small minded games.

Notes On Labour, Maria Cahill And Catherine McCartney’s Statement (Soundmigration)

(Rollingnews.ie)

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Jaykers.

Meanwhile…

Zing!

Related: Mayo sports clubs benefit to the tune of €1.3 million (Connacht Telegraph)

ferris

Ah here.

Brendan writer:

Another way to control us. Stick of rock from [wicklow Labour Party TD] Anne Ferris (from Bray). Warning E numbers may have adverse affects on children’s attention.

Update:

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Anne Ferris (right) with unidentified supporter and the controversial confectionary outside Bray train station.

Thanks Fluffybiscuits

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Labour TD Joanna Tuffy

The Labour recovery.

We’re getting our ‘stuff’ back.

Take that, misery junkies.

Labour TD Joanna Tuffy writes:

The feeble attempt by Aengus O Snodaigh yesterday to deny the very existence of the economic recovery is laughable, although when you consider the paucity of his party’s economic ‘expertise’, it i

Sinn Fein are misery junkies and as far as they are concerned, the more people who are out of work, the more people who are in mortgage arrears, and the less money families have to spend, the better.

Aengus O Snodaigh and his party feed off the uncertainty and anxiety that people experience at times of economic difficulty and there is no party better at exploiting ordinary people’s fears than Sinn Fein. But now that the recovery is under way Sinn Fein are petrified, and that’s why they have tried to dismiss the recovery as ‘false’.

Is it false, that in July, sales of new cars increased by 48% year on year? Is it false that car sales are set to exceed 100,000 for first time since 2008?

Is it false that so far this year, the number of foreign trips taken by Irish people has increased by 14.1% to 1.3 million?

Is it false that spending on home improvements by families has increased by 32% this year, and that over 33,000 works have been registered for the Home Renovation Scheme at average value of €15,457 per job?

Nobody is saying that everything is rosy in the garden, or that all our problems have been solved, but it is clear that things are getting a bit better for a lot of people.

Try as they might, not even Sinn Fein can wish away this recovery.”

Recovery is under way, and the Shinners are petrified (Joanna Tuffy, Labour)

Previously: “It’s Great To be Able To Finally Do The Kitchen”

Previously: Homeless Charities ‘Need To Step Up To The Plate’

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Pat Rabbitte, former Labour leader, outside the Dáil last week

Hurlers on the ditch can usually criticise without resort to personal invective. That aside, Diarmuid Ferriter’s is a warped assessment of Labour’s performance in Government since 2011 (“Labour’s woes rooted in more than an ungrateful electorate”, Opinion & Analysis, July 11th).

So great was the crisis facing this country in the winter of 2010/11 that only a broadly based government would have held society together. I am convinced that a single-party Fine Gael government – the only viable alternative – would not have survived the first year. That first dismal year saw the new Fine Gael-Labour Government struggle to restore Irish credibility in the EU institutions, keep the troika at bay and contend with Mr Trichet’s threat if we proceeded with burden sharing – as unemployment exceeded 15 per cent. In helping to bring the country back from the brink, Labour had to take some decisions that in normal times it would never have done.

Diarmuid Ferriter would perhaps have preferred if we had spent more time speechifying, dithering and generally faffing around like the Syriza government in Greece, making the crisis even worse and inflicting greater hardship on ordinary citizens. Of course, Syriza has in its ranks more than its fair share of academics with a part-time political sideline. The problem is, as Brendan Behan noted in another context, they know how it’s done but they’re unable to do it themselves.

There is nothing either “patronising or self-pitying” about my view of the “dysfunctional” fragmentation amongst the disparate elements of the political opposition. After what we have come though, the last thing this country needs is a coalition of chaos. Compare this country’s economic health with what unfortunately has engulfed Greece. The stability that we have established and the economic growth now happening offers the prospect, for the first time since the crash, of improved social investment and the gradual restoration of living standards.

Whether or not one is a Syriza fan, it must be obvious that unless we get our finances into kilter and a banking system functioning again, we will not be able to make inroads into poverty or tackle inequality in our society. Who will endure most arising from the cack-handed misgovernance of Greece? It won’t be the wealthy elite or the tax dodgers or the trendy academics advising Syriza on the politics of magical thinking.

The contention that Labour “would have benefitted more from staying in opposition” may be correct. But Labour was not elected in 2011 to stand aside. Prioritising power over principle is the favoured insult of the designer left thrown at every politician from Lloyd George to Barack Obama who dares take on the challenge of political responsibility in difficult times.

Pat Rabbitte
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.

Labour’s way (Irish Times letters page)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

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Labour TD Michael McNamara, left, with Labour Senator Ivana Bacik and former Labour leader Eamon Gilmore

In Village magazine, Michael McNamara, a Labour TD, writes:

“When Irish Water was established, it was deliberately placed outside the parliamentary questions process by two parties in government, including my own, that had spent years criticising the fact that the provision of vital health services was not susceptible to parliamentary questions.

The minister who took the Irish Water legislation through all stages of the Dáil in one afternoon – despite a clear commitment in the programme for government that there would be two weeks between all stages – has had a change of mind since he lost ministerial office.

What is it about the advice of civil servants that is so enchanting that their commitment to keeping information from the public they serve is always followed by their political “masters” who subsequently go into opposition and complain that they cannot get information from government on behalf of their constituents?

One of the first things this Government did after extending the Freedom of Information system was to close it down again when it came to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal – one of the shadiest areas of our justice system and it did so by ramming a motion through the Dáil with a limited debate on the last sitting day before a break.

Yes, this government brought the economy back from the edge which was one of its main tasks. But it failed to address the underlying problems and causes of what went so badly wrong. This government could have tackled corporate culture here, changed how this country is governed and how those who provide public services are held accountable to the public.

Instead, it spent too long just revelling in being in government. To date, it has comprehensively failed to carry out the task it set itself and for which it received a mandate – to reform how the business of government is done.”

Coalition has comprehensively failed to reform business of government: Labour TD (Village magazine)

Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland