Frontrunner of Irish presidency Senator David Norris launches his campaign

On Monday week, I’ll be interviewing Senator David Norris on his bid to become Ireland’s President later this year. In what’ll be the first big event of the campaign, the Senator and I will be having what promises to be a fun evening in front of a live audience in Galway’s University campus. In a news environment where it’s impossible to avoid the dismal conduct of politicians, it’ll make a welcome change to discuss positive issues with such a colourful figure.

In recent times, the Presidency has been transformed. What was formerly the political equivalent of a nice pen set for a retiring Fianna Fáil minister, the cobwebs in the Aras were emphatically blown out following the election of Mary Robinson. While the hand that rocked the cradle rocked the system during her campaign, she rocked the foundations of her office for seven years: she met with Queen and shook hands with Gerry Adams, she spoke out on human rights disasters in Somalia and Rwanda, and in her constitutional battle with Charles Haughey she asserted the President’s independence and gave what was a staid and dowdy office a fresh and liberal face.

Her successor Mary McAlesse’s carried on that torch in a slightly more moderate way, but her two terms were very much carried out on Robinson’s trail. Now, when the reputation of the political classes would have to reach up to get in the gutter, a vibrant, active and morale-boosting President has rarely been as important.

As candidates go, Norris is a popular contender even at this early stage, but he has his obstacles. For starters, he won’t get on the ballot at all if he doesn’t get the nomination of 20 Oireachtas members or the sanction of four county councils. On the issues, his sexuality has been deposed into the argument with brazen and innuendo-laden vigour by the Campaign For Conscience. Since his term would encompass him being Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces for the Easter Rising centenary celebrations, his republican credentials will also no doubt be called into question. But, it’s a long campaign, and no doubt it’ll be an eventful one. But it starts this Monday. 

Due to an unforseen medical appointment, it is my deep regret to say that we've had to postpone our evening with Senator David Norris. We hope to reschedule again as soon as we can, but in the meantime my sincere apologies for everyone who had planned on watching either live and online, and my heartfelt thanks for all your best wishes and support.

Arguments for the abolition of Ireland's upper house of parliament

Irish politics have taken a turn toward Springfield of late. Such is the opprobrium caused by the government that people are turning in their droves towards some manner of alternative. But, like a town hall meeting in The Simpsons, collective disquiet doesn’t necessarily mean an ideal outcome:


“WE’RE SICK OF THIS GOVERNMENT AND WON’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” “YEAH!”


“WE WANT DRASTIC CHANGE IN THE WAY THIS COUNTRY OPERATES!” “YEAH!”

“LET’S ABOLISH THE SEANAD!” “Ye-wait a minute, what?”

Yup, in spite of the freakshow they call a government and a banking industry sharing the same hip, in spite of the Dáil railroading through umpteen pieces of publically maligned legislation from budgets to four year plans to Nama, and in spite of the fact that same chamber facilitates the election of more arse-backwards moonshine salesmen per square inch than any other legislature in the known universe, it’s the Dáil’s staid older brother that becomes the focus point of everything we hold disastrous in the Irish political system. I can’t help but find that strange.

Granted, the Seanad is not perfect. In fact it’s in such dire need of reform it should only be recognisable by its dental records. The method of electing Senators is byzantine and insane, as 43 are elected by vocational panels that make as much sense as a Japanese gameshow, 3 are elected by the graduates of the NUI colleges, 3 by Trinity graduates, and the 11 others are nominated by the newly elected Taoiseach.

But in spite of the fact pretty much every Senate candidate touts reform of the House on their manifestos, there hasn’t been the collective inclination to action it. And now, when the appetite for wide reform is ravenous, there doesn’t appear to be the stomach for it.

Fine Gael were the first to call for the abolition of the Seanad. Well, I say Fine Gael, it was really more of an Enda Kenny solo run, with the Senators in his own party looking like they’d been heaved out of their beds at three in the morning when asked about the issue at first. And now, Labour have jumped on that bandwagon. Although, their engineering is a bit more advanced.

Brendan Howlin released Labour’s document for political reform last Thursday, a 32 page document that advocates Seanad abolition (or, more precisely, advocating a yes vote in the referendum to abolish it) as just one of the changes in a wider crusade for wholesale change of the system. When I talked to him about the proposals the day before he certainly put forward a reasoned case: countries like Sweden (widely acknowledged as the Marcia Brady of political systems) and New Zealand have unicameral legislatures and they operate well, and proper reform of the Dáil with a rebalancing between executive and legislative power, would negate the need for a Seanad anyway.

When questioned on the virtue of having a Séanad as a “place apart”, elected differently to the Dáil and inhabited by people who may not correspond to localised, clientelist politics, Howlin responded by suggesting any public representative must be the choice of and have the will of the people, and if a candidate is good enough they can get elected, pointing to Senator David Norris’ strong challenge for the Presidency. While Howlin’s fidelity to the voting public is admirable, it’s well worth noting that the last two elected Presidents, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, both failed in their attempts to get elected to the Dáil.

One woman who has also followed in both Robinson and McAleese’s footsteps as Reid Professor of Law at Trinity is Labour Senator Ivana Bacik, Eamon Gilmore’s running mate in Dun Laoighaire for the following election. Bacik too takes a pragmatic view that as it stands the case for the Séanad has failed, and she also echoed concerns about the viability of reform, saying any suggestions made would be “unlikely to please everyone” and “very hard to see working”. There’s a lot of anger and distrust in the system, claimed Bacik, which makes it so important to have the discussion as part of a wider, nuanced constitutional review.

While the opinions of Bacik and Howlin were earnest and considered, the phrasing in Labour’s actual report was much more disappointing:

“The question boils down essentially to whether we really want or need a second chamber that represents a different configuration of the people. If so, what should that configuration be?

The fact that the question is so rarely asked indicates not so much an implicit approval for the status

quo as a general indifference to both the question and the answer. And that indifference of itself

answers the question whether we need a Séanad. The State can do without a house of parliament

that so few of its citizens know about, care about, or would miss.”

It goes on to say:

“The Séanad, on the other hand, is not essential. It is an optional extra. Because it is not directly elected by the people, its existence is not central to the concept of representative democracy.

The second house must therefore have some other, additional function. It must in some way

contribute added value to the process. It has to justify its existence. If the justification is inadequate,

then it should go. The reality is that there is popular indifference about the future of the Séanad. The reasons are clear enough; they have persisted since the Séanad’s establishment in its present form in 1937. Quite simply, no one is sure what purpose the Séanad is meant to serve.”

In essence, the Labour stance is that reforming the Séanad is an enormous and complicated job for an institution nobody cares much about anyway. While that may be the harsh political reality, the invocation of indifference as a reason for abolition is intensely unnerving. Now more than ever, politicians need to combat indifference, not succumb to it.

As Ivana Bacik’s argument bears out there are more than enough shades of grey on the issue to go around, and maybe Brendan Howlin’s utilitarian approach is the most sensible, but I can’t help but feel this is a missed opportunity.

In an atmosphere where the amount of well-considered politicians could be counted on your thumbs, it’s worth considering some of the luminaries that have taken their seats in the Séanad over the years: Nobel laureate WB Yeats, future Presidents Douglas Hyde and Mary Robinson, pioneer of the co-operative movement Horace Plunkett, the most important political revolutionary of our times TK Whitaker, playwright Brian Friel, peace campaigner Gordon Wilson, northern politicians Seamus Mallon and Brid Rodgers, legendary jurist Catherine McGuiness, and many more besides. They were all independent voices, all had something valuable to say, and none of them ever sat in the Dáil. They never had to play the parish pump game, and their style wasn’t cramped by party whips. Even now, the standout performers in the Séanad are independent university candidates the likes of David Norris, Joe O’Toole and Shane Ross. We desperately need people like that now, and a framework that allows them to work properly.

While the Dáil reflects an electorate based on geography, the Séanad could represent constituencies based on communities of common ground: workers and professionals across the sectors like farming, production and services; the graduates of universities and IT’s, all of them; representatives from the arts, community and NGO sector, the most underrated in the country by miles; and, the most sizeable section of all, the Irish abroad.

The franchise rights of Irish emigrants have been a hotly contested issue of late, and author of GlobalIrish.ie Noreen Bowden is an enthusiastic advocate for giving the diaspora a say in the how the home country is governed: “Because we have about a million Irish-born citizens living overseas, the key thing we need to do is achieve a balance between the rights of non-resident and resident citizens. We do have a high number of citizens abroad, but that in itself is no reason for not allowing them a vote: we just need to work out the fairest and most appropriate method of representing them.”

“Emigrants are affected by government policies and decisions: perhaps most significantly right now, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of recent emigrants who may hope that their stay will be temporary. They should have a say in policies that may affect their chances of return. We need all hands on deck here to get us through this crisis: we should be working to maximise the contribution and input of all our willing citizens, no matter where they live”. Regarding the potential role of the the Séanad, Bowden says its role could be an important one: “At present the Seanad is seen as a talking shop, of course, as there's little real power there, but there's a real openness to reform right now. We need to reinvent our structures to better represent - and give real power to - all of our citizens, including those overseas.”

Of course, the composition of such electorates would take a lot of definition and logistical management, but it is possible. If Italy, with possibly the only other established government more chaotic than ours, can manage a system whereby émigrés get represented in both their legislative houses, there is no earthly reason why we couldn’t do the same, for all those panels. One of the other big problems with the Séanad is that the elections take place so close to the Dáil that they are essentially an appendix to the big ticket event. If they were given their own separate date of election not linked to that of the Dáil - on the same day as Euro and local elections perhaps, or even standalone - then that would go a long way to increasing profile and interest.

Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of will. As it stands the Séanad may not have any meaning for the public, any purpose for the deficit hawks, or any incentive to amend for politicians, but we have to look beyond what it is and imagine what it could be. It could be a place full of truly representative national figures, of big ideas, free from partisan politics, with a real impact on Irish life and a mature counterweight to the Dáil. Yes, the Séanad in its current form is a problem, but Ireland has become all too used to burying problems instead of fixing them. Fixing this one is an enormous opportunity to have an enormous effect on the future civic health of the country. But only if we’re so inclined to grasp it.

Bertie Ahern - a leader who fled a sinking ship

Prior to the 2007 general election, it felt like it was going to be a line-in-the-sand election of the 1948 variety. But, instead of the ‘48 outcome, where the other parties (and the public at large) grew so weary of the long reign of the Fianna Fáil government that they all banded together to heave them out of office, something else happened. That thing was Bertie Ahern.

Even though his personal finances wouldn’t have been out of place in 1920’s Chicago, and even though he and his government ran the country in a fashion so lackadaisical it was almost Zen-like, on the two central acid tests of the election (the North and the economy) Bertie was deemed to have passed with a push and prevented the opposition from winning what should have been a slam dunk of an election. It also helped that a sizeable portion of the population seemed to think he was a puppy, as criticism of Bertie back then was often met with a loud chorus of “Ah would ye leave him alone, sure he’s only lovely!” Boy, was that a mistake.

Now, two years after the former captain of Ireland’s political Hindenburg fritzed out the controls and leapt off with the only parachute on board, Bertie Ahern announced on New Year’s Eve that he was officially giving up the old flying Zeppelins business. That Ahern won’t run in next year’s general election, thus bringing an end to his 34 year reign of inanity, is no doubt satisfying, but in so announcing he made some statements that brought my gorge rising levels back to 2007 standards.

“If I had seen the banking crisis coming. Nobody advised me, no economist, all those people now writing books saying ‘I told you so’ – none of them”, was one of his gems, for instance. For a politician with such a reputation for astuteness, he makes it sound as if he became Taoiseach as part of a TV talent contest with no prior experience in the field. While everyday politics is behind him he still has a promising career as a fantasy fiction writer at least.

Of course not only were there some economists, journalists and, amazing as it is to conceive, ordinary people waving red flags (or at least suggesting that which goes up might have to come down eventually) but they were steadily trashed by the economic gravity defying Ahern, who insisted “the boom times are getting even more boomer”. He actually said this. On one shameful occasion, he notoriously suggested that anybody unhappy with the state of the economy commit suicide. When he was taken to task on it, he grinned his stupidest grin and said he didn’t mean anything by it. In the spongy, brightly coloured ball pool Bertie calls reality, this makes it all OK.

If only he’d left his retirement speech with a merely galling “Sure how was I to know?” statement to satisfy his ego, but no, he had to out-git himself. In an interview with The News Of The World (the paper he writes a sports column/climbs into cupboards for) he criticised Brian Cowen’s leadership, intimating he wasn’t doing a good job at getting the government message out there and that if corrective measures had been taken by Cowen earlier or had a plan in place to make sure Ireland didn’t go the same way as Greece, Ireland may have dodged the EU/IMF bailout. Even by Ahern’s amoral standards, that is pretty extraordinary.
Say what you want about Brian Cowen, and you could say loads, but loyalty is something he’s put a high premium on all his political life, and with this interview Ahern has shown that loyalty isn’t in his mangled vocabulary. Brazen self-preservation however courses through his veins, and with his criticism of Cowen he’s trying to get people to think that he would’ve handled things differently (and better, naturally) while at the same time scrawling “Nothing to do with me, pal” on the walls of the Irish financial system. But hell, why privately relay your concerns to the man who replaced you when you can get your sainted, perceptive head in the papers instead, eh?

While those statements are enough to get the most mild mannered of people riled up, the one that really gets me is his response to questions about whether he will run for the Presidency later this year. “I don’t know. I honestly haven’t decided that”. Ahern knows full well that there’s more chance of William Shatner being elected Irish President than him, yet he couldn’t even answer that question honestly.

Presidential run or not, Ahern’s recent statements show that he is fiercely protective of his legacy, and will do or say pretty much anything to maintain it. While of course his part in the Northern Ireland peace process was distinct and valuable, he was part of a large ensemble cast, and as the other promises of his 2007 election campaign are now distant spectres, he’ll struggle to stop his name sliding inexorably into historical disrepute no matter what he does.

Ahern’s late constituency rival Tony Gregory used to commonly rail against various governments’ “Thatcherite” policies, and whether you agreed with the policies that word represented, you have to respect the fact that Thatcherite means something, that it stands for a certain set of values and principles and way of thinking that were resolutely defined. To what set of principles or causes of devotion would Ahernism correspond? It’s Ireland’s tragedy that during its’ most prosperous years we had a man in charge whose position was to be pro-being in charge and anti-someone else being in charge, whose policy was to vacillate and kick the ball down the field anything remotely contentious, whose philosophy was “Don’t over-think it, lads”.

In the eleven years he was in charge, with the money we had swimming around, we could have had a health or education or transport system the envy of the world. We could have led the charge on the big challenge of the 21st century: making renewable energy mainstream. We could have promoted better civic engagement, encouraged the valuable work being done by ordinary people in their communities, and made big strides in ending inequality and disadvantage. Instead we drifted along, purposeless, with only a catalogue of waste, pointless pet projects and blunders masked by the heady aroma of economic growth a mile wide and an inch deep to show for it.

That is Ahern’s enduring legacy. It’s a well-quoted fact that after securing a coalition deal with the PD’s in 1989, Charles Haughey called Bertie “the most cunning, the most devious of them all”. Charlie being Charlie he meant that as a compliment, but I’d go one better than that. Bertie Ahern is the most feckless, the most craven, the most ruthless, the most contemptible, the most noxious weasel of them all. Good riddance you wastrel, don’t let the doors of the Dáil hit you on the way out.

A review of 2010 through Irish eyes

The problem with reviews of the year is that the opposite end of the year feels like much longer ago than 12 months which makes those events much harder to recall. It’s a bit like meeting a friend you haven’t seen in ages: even if you became the new Chairman of BP, played in the longest game ever recorded at Wimbledon or admitted dabbling in witchcraft in the last year, you’d still likely start the conversation with “ah, it’s been quiet enough”.

Of course, it’s been anything but quiet this year, although those in power really could have done with shutting up more. I’m looking at you, government. This was the year where the wheels finally came off the stainless steel, gull-winged jalopy we used to call an economy, where instead hovering into the future we were dumped unceremoniously back to the fifties, with tracks of fire everywhere. At least we have a grey-haired man with glasses and a distinct speaking voice to help us through: Oli Rehn.

That the EU and the IMF have landed the mothership over the puny earthling repository we call Dáil Eireann is a bit embarrassing considering a few years ago we thought we owned the universe (yes, I’ve moved on from time travel and I’m on to space metaphors now). On the plus side, it’s nice to have someone competent in charge. Brian Cowen and the Keystone Cops he calls a government have done their level best to look as publically and emphatically stupid as possible, and in that at least they’ve done an incredible job. Among the nominees for best performance in a crowded field are Brian Lenihan doing his best Ralph Bellamy in Trading Places, Ivor Callely doing a particularly obnoxious Leo Di Caprio from Catch Me If You Can, Mattie McGrath’s unhinged Crocodile Dundee and Paul Gogarty, who in simply being himself seems to play more roles than Eddie Murphy in Norbit. But, the award this year goes to Oliver Reed himself, Brian Cowen, who made a holy show of himself on Morning Ireland after a Rat Pack night with the press pack.

Alas, for poor old George Lee, his nine months out of the limelight as a Fine Gael backbencher prompted him to give the business the heave ho, like the guy Gladys Knight sang about in Midnight Train To Georgia. The whole thing showed up Enda Kenny to the point he nearly lost his leadership of the party soon after. Luckily for him Fine Gael’s enduring weakness – toothless disorganisation – came to his rescue, and he still hangs on, like an actor in a 1950’s thriller dangling off a cliff.

But when it comes to tenuous clinging to power, you really can’t beat the Catholic Church. This year has been one big demonstration of how wide the chasm is between what they think of themselves and what they actually are. From The Vatican refusing to accept the resignations of two bishops for their connection to The Murphy Report, to Cardinal Brady refusing any responsibility for, anything really, all the while offering their two cents on the decline of morality at every given opportunity, the Church has engaged in behaviour that would make Jesus even more enraged than the time those guys sold counterfeit Playstation games in the Temple. Their piece de resistance this year though was making the ordination of women priests “a grave sin”, suggesting The Pope would be more comfortable up a tree house than in a marble palace. Someone pass me a hatchet.

In spite of the cataclysmic year for the Catholic Church, they still had enough devout members to create a ruckus on a number of issues. The year started off well for them, with the introduction of a Blasphemy Law that made no Christing sense at all, but it went downhill for them from there. They were audibly displeased at the passing of a Civil Partnership Bill, with Senator Ronan Mullen (think John Lithgow at the beginning of Footloose) leading the charge against. They were audibly displeased that Limerick pubs sold booze on Good Friday for a rugby match going on in the city that day, as it showed flagrant disrespect for the time-honoured tradition of people stocking up on drink on Holy Thursday. Or possibly some other reason. They were also audibly displeased at the emergence of Head Shops, or rather the sudden realisation they exist, as people prayed outside the premises in the hope these evil-doers who run Head Shops might stop selling whatever it was they were selling. The agitators won out, but it turned out to be a minor battle in a much bigger war full of double standards and moral outrage.

I was in London when I heard that Gerry Ryan had died, and while I tried to keep up with the story I couldn’t really connect from such a distance away with the palpable shock and grief people were feeling. Small wonder given he was only 53 years of age, holding a vice-like grip on 2FM’s schedules for 22 of them. Colleague after colleague came out to sing the praises of the magnificent slabberhead they knew and clearly loved, but within months that shock was trumped by an even bigger one.

The news that cocaine use was a precipitating factor in Gerry Ryan’s death certainly came as a shock, but perhaps not exactly a surprise. Except it seemed to be for the majority of those same colleagues who paid tribute to him only months earlier, as not only did nobody appear to know but nobody wanted to even take the issue on. Joe Duffy has described himself as hysterically anti-drugs, yet when it came to Gerry’s using it was only himself he was damaging, apparently.

That’s been Ireland’s year in essence, really: a reel of powerful people doing one thing and saying another with a galling lack of self-awareness. Radio presenters stoking broadcast bonfires about the dangers of head shops, but apparently thinking their friend’s supply of cocaine was somehow produced outside the canon of violence and exploitation we know the drug trade simultaneously creates and feeds off. Church leaders condemning the ordination of women priests or legislating for civil partnership and potentially abortion, while their cover up and de facto facilitation of child abuse doesn’t seem to bother many of them at all. Political leaders insisting the worst of the economic hardship will soon be over and that they have the national interest at heart, all the while implementing harder and harder measures on everyone but those who truly deserve it, and lying about what they intend to do continuously up until the point they introduce them.

That’s the problem with reviews of the year, they often made up of things that are hard to recall.

If Teddy Roosevelt was alive today he'd punch everyone in the face

I’ve always had a long-standing interest in American politics. Looking back, it was never going to be any other way. One of my first proper memories was seeing TV stats of Clinton’s 1992 victory and his victory sax. Growing up on the border in the 90’s it was almost impossible to avoid Clinton in fact, as he’d practically attained demi-God status thanks to his efforts with the peace process. On the wall of my grandparents’ kitchen wall was a plate with Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s faces on it.

As time went on my political consciousness expanded, initially through the Irish Democrat prism. But I soon moved beyond the Kennedys and found myself having more of an affinity with the likes his 1960 Primary opponents Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson, as well as FDR and Harry Truman before them. Yet while my voting profile would be largely that of your classic New England leftie liberal communist gun-hating egghead, one of my favourite ever Presidents was, in fact, a Republican.

There’s little you can’t admire about Teddy Roosevelt. A sickly and weak child, he worked hard at strengthening himself and became a fearsome boxer. He overcame enormous personal tragedy (his wife and mother died on the same day) to forge a successful military and political career. He was so successful as Governor of New York, in fact, that the party bosses he had so successfully taken on had him shunted to the political Marie Celeste they call the Vice Presidency. William McKinley’s assassination promoted him, and he became the youngest person to become President, and quite the President he turned out to be.

Enormously popular with the public, he was an advocate of a square deal domestically and walking softly and carrying a big speak with regards to foreign policy. He busted trusts and was an avid conservationist. He lost the sight in his eye after he challenged a champion boxer visiting The White House to put up his dukes and urged him to try and hit him as hard as he could. Later in his career he gave a ninety minute speech immediately after being shot, had a children’s toy named after him and appeared alongside Cary Grant in North by Northwest, albeit in stone form. He had a near-perfect blend of humane policies, physical and mental toughness and a preposterous lunacy that only the truly heroic possess.

And if he were alive today, he’d almost certainly give everyone a good hiding. 

The first person he’d give a good shaking to is the man who currently occupies his office. As the man who coined the phrase “The Strenuous Life”, TR would not be a fan of President Obama’s hedging and compromising with Congressional Republicans.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”, so claimed Teddy, and while Obama may have aimed for glorious triumphs, grey twilight is more what it feels like. Roosevelt would be particularly disgusted that healthcare for 9/11 responders can’t even get done, disgusted to the point he’d likely force any member of Congress who voted against such a measure to avail of their own public option.  But that wouldn’t be the only issue on which he’d have Republicans running scared.

In 1907 he claimed “A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune”.  A couple of years later he also said “No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered — not gambling in stocks, but service rendered.”, so it’s unlikely he’d have rolled over on the extension of the Bush tax cuts either. Roosevelt may not have agreed 100% with the redoubtable Bernie Sanders, but he’d leaning to his side on this one.

Roosevelt was an enthusiastic big game hunter, but he never had to deal with that very modern beast: 24 hours news media. And, as a dyed in the wool Progressive, he would have been Fox News’ public enemy number one. Small wonder, when he made public statements like: “Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests, which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.” He was referring to political parties, but it fits certain sections of the media like a glove.

In fact, one of Fox’s roster, Glenn Beck, considers Roosevelt the arch- antagonist in the deranged conspiratorial play he imagines real life to be, where progressives are just communists with poor stamina, tears and hysteria count for reasoned dialogue and “look left” road markings are a sign of creeping socialism. I don’t know about you, but I’d pay any money to see Roosevelt refute his charges. I imagine it would result in Beck being torn so many new ones he’d have a whole new range of orifices out of which to speak.

Roosevelt might have a couple of words to say to Julian Assange as well. TR was President during the age of “The Muckrakers”, a revolutionary movement of journalists uncovering malpractice, corruption and dreadful working conditions. Roosevelt largely welcomed and facilitated the improvements these revelations prompted, but he had a warning too:  “Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck, and to look upward to the celestial crown above them. If they gradually grow to feel that the whole world is nothing but muck their power of usefulness is gone.”

With the world currently seemingly split between wondering if Assange is a Robin Hood-type hero or a nefarious scoundrel in rather black and white terms, Roosevelt’s point about throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a pertinent one. The public have a right to know if their government is doing dreadful things in their name; they don’t have a right to know diplomatic tittle-tattle that does nothing but embarrass and compromise and make people even more jaded about their leaders. The government has a right to keep certain things secret, like for instance a suspected outbreak of a terrible disease or counter-terrorism to counter mass panic; they don’t have the right to exploit legitimate safeguards for illegitimate means.

There are of course a couple of things about Teddy that weren’t wholly admirable either. His attitude towards hyphenated Americans was intransigent and far from empathetic, and early in his career he made comments about Indians and black people that’d make you grab your collar nervously, though he became more enlightened in that respect as time went on.  But for all his faults he was a fair, fighting President who stood unabashed and unashamed for Progressive values. Two years before he ran for a third term, he made this statement in launch of his doctrine of “New Nationalism”:

“Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.”

Those words may be a century old, but they’re eminently relevant today. Now more than ever we need someone like Roosevelt to stand up for those values. And maybe crack a few heads while he’s at it.

Minister John Gormley's opportunity to leave a legacy of inspiring youth leadership

John Gormley

I’ve been a bit pre-occupied this week.

On this, the week of our Budget misery, I’ve been less concerned at the latest splurge of head-melting figures of what Brian Cowen has called “progressive” (if he added “-ly pushing us off a cliff” he might be approaching accuracy) and paying more attention to an issue close to my heart that, in the grand scheme of things, is just as important as Dáil votes and Finance Bills.

I was the first person elected to the Donegal Youth Council eight years ago, and I’ve been closely involved ever since. The high water mark of that involvement was between 2006 and 2008, when I was a mentor/trainer for that season’s youth councillors. Being the Emilio Estevez to those mighty, mighty ducks is the best thing I’ve done in my life without any shadow of a doubt. But this week, the Youth Council was suspended. The last co-ordinator’s contract expired last week, and due to a national hiring freeze the council can’t hire another one. The decision to hire lies directly with the Department of Environment, and with Minister John Gormley.

You may not have heard of the Donegal Youth Council, but this government would do well to follow at their example. It was the first directly elected body of its kind in the Republic of Ireland. Girl councillors have been in the majority for almost all of the past eight years, while the amount of women in politics at a national level is woeful. Youth Councillors are elected in a climate where 80% turnout would be considered disappointing, while the national average is much, much lower. Youth Councillors have a larger mandate that 90% of the members of Séanad Eireann.

In the past eight years the Youth Council have been ahead of the curve on so many of the issues that affect us today. They’ve been pioneers in shaping mental and sexual health policy on a national level, and in boldly raising awareness on what were even a short time ago taboo topics. Even Mary Harney acknowledges their crucial role in making the cervical cancer vaccine a public health imperative. Their “Agenda Day” held in Letterkenny brought people of all walks of life from guards and young people to older people and businessmen together for an unprecedented public discussion on their views and concerns for the future of the town. They’ve organised public general election debates. They have done and continue to do similar work on road safety, on positive attitudes to drugs and alcohol, on education reform, on public transport and infrastructure, on the environment, on sporting policy, on loads more besides. They also have the not inconsiderable duty of serving 12,000 young people in the county, each with their particular personal concerns.

It’s disconcerting in the extreme then to learn that the Youth Council might be in danger. Not because of a lack of funding or interest, they’re not the problem at all. It’s a simple staffing issue. The youth councillors themselves initiate and steer their own agenda, but without a coordinator to guide and advise them, they can’t do their job properly. The last batch of youth councillors were only elected a matter of weeks ago, so the role of the co-ordinator is even more pertinent still. It’d be an incredible shame if the hard and valuable work of the last eight years was lost in such a way.

That work is even more important in light of the Budget and the circumstances the country finds itself in. You might be forgiven for thinking that with the savage cuts happening in all sections of Irish life that something like the Youth Council is a kind of luxurious folly. But exactly because of the effects of our economic woe, it’s never been more important to have eager, engaged and active young citizens bringing hope and positivity to the country. Think tanks and ten point plans for transforming the country endorsed by popular media figures are all the rage right now, but the Donegal Youth Council have been putting plans into action long before the latest think tank was thought up.

Whoever they work with and wherever they’re working, they’re continuously told they’re the best at what they do, not just in the country, but on the international stage. We should be emphatically proud that the enduringly neglected borderlands in the North West of Ireland is home to what is genuinely considered a world class organisation. But they don’t do it for the glory, or because they think it’d be good for their CV. They do it because they care.

If Ireland is ever to be a place of true prosperity again, it needs citizens who take responsibility and initiative for making their communities better places, who from a young age feel they have a say and a hand in the issues that affect them. It needs citizens who have a vision of what the country can be and get to work on making it reality, and who think of public services not as something passively received but actively shaped. The Donegal Youth Council fosters all these values, and it is vital they’re allowed to continue with that work. It is a shining example of politics at its purest, and public service at its finest.

A crisis everywhere except in the Irish media

Ryan Tubridy - "The Late Late Show"

One of the more uplifting moments of the last few weeks was provided in bulk by international zeitgeist machine Twitter. A hashtag dedicated to great things about Ireland took off like an errant financial consultant to Rio, and in spite of the various other spectres haunting the Irish news, it became a preoccupying topic.

Some of the suggestions were straight-forward (the Kerry coastline), some were oblique (conversations with your parents that begin “D’ye know who’s dead?”), some were tongue-in-cheek (our united opposition to buying anti-virus software) and most of them were funny-because-they’re true. Memories of TV were an inevitable part of the mix as well, like the ESB ad that coloured a whole generation’s view of what college would be like, me amongst them. If only TV now was as capable of lifting the mood.

The problem with Irish stations at the minute is they’re acting like an overzealous teacher on a mundane school trip. If you have to constantly ask “We’re having fun, aren’t we?” then chances are you’re not. Case in point: The Late Late Show. To Ryan Tubridy’s credit last week’s Toyshow was one of the best in living memory and forced the country to put down their cynicism en masse for a couple of hours, but he couldn’t resist making the odd topical gag about the IMF and the like that nobody wanted to hear. Every other week he’ll make a reference to the blindingly flaming obvious, something like, “we really need good news right now” or “things are very tough at the minute”. The Late Late has always been a national barometer of sorts, but it works just as well without the running commentary.

The high water mark of this televisual navel-gazing happened a few weeks ago, when Tubridy interviewed Labour leader Eamon Gilmore. At one point Gilmore referred to the President of Chile’s handling of the mining crisis as an example of decisive leadership, when Tubridy interjected to say “But that was 33 people, we have 4 and a half million people in a hole here”.

Fair enough, it’s Ryan’s prerogative to test political leaders in any way he sees fit, but that piety would be a whole lot more tolerable if weeks earlier he had asked Willie O’Dea, a former cabinet minister in one of the most calamitous governments the world has ever known who had to resign due to spreading scurrilous rumours about a political opponent and then lied about it in a sworn affidavit, any question harder than “Who’s your favourite ninja turtle?”

That an estimable broadcaster such as Tubridy feels such a self-conscious need to furnish us with a makeshift weekly fireside chat is aggravating, but it’s a trend that’s replicated and augmented across their schedules. Of course the news has to report things as they are (although, in the now-notorious press conference where RTE cut away from Vincent Browne giving it lilty to Brians Cowen and Lenihan to studio analysts, not always perfectly either), but the litany of Ireland’s other current affairs shows generate a lot more heat than light.

“Prime Time” have created promos that made their coverage of Ireland’s bailout look so stunningly dramatic that it’d be forgivable to think presenter Miriam O’Callaghan was a figure closer to Jack Bauer than John Chancellor. Pat Kenny’s “The Frontline”, though sometimes stimulating, is well named because it more often than not descends into an over-the-top bloodbath. Vincent Browne’s crazed judicial stylings make his nightly show a clinic in masochism. And some of the callers to Joe Duffy’s national squawk box “Liveline” would make you facepalm for a solid ninety minutes. One of the counter-intuitive benefits for the broadcasters about this economic catastrophe is that it sure has helped fill a lot of airtime.

Of course, I’m not suggesting for a minute that broadcasters should avoid confronting harsh realities in order to make us all feel better about ourselves, but being stultified by increasingly bombastic and fantastical coverage of issues we’re patently and intimately aware of to begin with is worse still. We hardly need presenters and experts earning six figure salaries to tell us in detail how poor we’ve all become and why over and over. Or for them to appear to revel in it so much.

It seems to be an inescapable cycle, a part of Ireland’s incurable preoccupation with preoccupation: the more the media discuss banks and bailouts the more we get sucked in, and the more sucked in we get the more the media feel they need to ratchet up the noise. And when every syllable of news is proclaimed at the top of the voice, the truly important gets drowned out in a collective bout of national tinnitus. This obsessive desire to micro-cover the crisis is not only diluting the story, but eradicating all relativity and perspective.

The media and in particular the broadcast media can at its best can be an agent of incredible nobility; it can inform, educate, entertain, amuse and enthuse. But if they really want to be agents of seeing us through these “tough times”, there are a few words of advice they should take heed of every now and then: just shut up for a while.