"Guns & Roses" - How left wing coalition might be Ireland's Labour Party's only hope

Eamon Gilmore discusses the Algerian hostage situation on Irish TV

I was in a hotel room in London last week, and switched on the TV for the news at the time the Algerian hostage crisis was being covered. Half way through the bulletin, I see Eamon Gilmore being interview by a press pack in his capacity as Foreign Affairs Minister. My first instinct was to think, "Oh yeah, that guy. What ever happened him?"

For a while now - specifically, since February 2011 - that question has been reverberating round my head. "What ever happened to Eamon Gilmore?". Or indeed, "What ever happened to the Labour Party?". Despite their best ever showing in an Irish election ever in 2011 they have since gone into hibernation, choosing to prop up the political status quo by going into coalition with Fine Gael rather than taking their place, for the first time ever, as Ireland's main opposition party. Now, you might say that nobody achieves anything in opposition, but then again they haven't achieved anything in power either. Seriously, can you think of anything worthwhile Labour have done in the last two years? Answers on a postcard please.

Their choice to take the leather of ministerial Mercs and office chairs poses a serious problem for the party in this, the year of their 100th anniversary, and indeed beyond. As people cast their minds back to the nostalgia-doused heroism of Connolly and Larkin, today's Labour top brass will look all the more ridiculous and feckless. And as for the next election, the problem gets more serious. If Labour couldn't properly assert themselves with 37 seats at the height of their powers, how will anyone believe they can get anything done after five risible years in power and an inevitably diminished parliamentary presence?

At this stage, there seems to be only one option, one that isn't all that palatable to some, but it's not like Labour have a choice: alliance with Sinn Fein. It won't be easy for the ex-Stickie dominated Labour to countenance a move jokingly referred to as a "Guns & Roses" coalition, but ultimately what choice do they have? The long wished for unification of the left  in Irish politics should and could have happened a few times over in the last two decades, but for Labour to maintain any relevance in the next decade and beyond, they need to become a senior partner in a cogent force advocating genuine social democratic principles. Once the old embarrassments of the Sinn Fein parliamentary party finally stand down, and it's only a matter of time before they do, the only obstacle remaining will be outright snobbery. But if Labour can't detach themselves from their death grasp with Fine Gael for the "politically naive" or "economically illiterate" Sinn Fein, then pride will surely come before a very large fall.

Home thoughts from abroad can cause serious January blues - New year blues for immigrants leaving their families again

Heading back to reality after the holidays can be hard

As I start writing this, on the 6th January, it's not the just the Christmas decorations that are on a come down.

Post-Christmas malaise hitting you like a juggernaut of omni-problems and January's role as an austere counterweight to all the December revelry is a familiar trope and a feeling we're all au fait with, but for the emigrés among us who returned home for the holidays, the feeling hits a little harder.

I, for instance, now living in Manchester, got home for a little over a fortnight. At least, that's what the calendar indicated, but I'm convinced I've been swindled by the space time continuum somehow. There's no possible way that lightning fast pop-my-head-round-the-door of a holiday was 16 days long.

There's a lot to pack in to such a short space of time, and that's what makes that great big expanse of January all the worse. While at least you get some degree of solid family time, it's the important people outside that circle that proves problematic. You try and catch up with all your friends, but inevitably there are a few you can't meet up with, and that's vexing. But what's almost worse is the friends you do see, but just barely. When there are a slew of people you want to catch up with, people you might not have seen in ages, a whistle stop visit a mile wide and an inch deep doesn't really cut it. In the season of goodwill to all, you really want to have time to say more than "Merry Christmas!" to them all.

Meetings can also be bittersweet because the geographical distance can show up other forms of distance. When you don't see someone in ages, and you have a long list of developments to share in a short space of time, the new names and new factors you've been missing out on while away can cause considerable lament.

With the new year rattling inexorably on, full of appraisal and longing as much as hope and resolution, the one thing we in the places we've left behind can resolve to do is make sure the links of our life don't become rusted over. "No man is a failure who has friends", so said Clarence the Angel in the Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life. The festive season may be over, but the effort to make time for the people who matter to us most shouldn't stop, whatever the time, and wherever you are.

2012 a tale of two Northern Irelands - from the celebrations of the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics to the violent Union flag protests

Protesters with covered faces object to the removal of the Union flag from Belfast City Hall

I lived the vast majority of this year in Belfast, and a very happy time, for the most part, it was too. It was a very busy year, with "Our Time, Our Place" posters strewn about the place, Titanic and Solemn League & Covenant centenary celebrations, and a Diamond Jubilee revelry in there for good measure.

In July, Martin McGuinness even shook hands with the Queen. At the height of summer, City Hall was baked in sunshine as it blasted out the Olympics from their jumbo screens. It seemed that Belfast, and Northern Ireland as a whole, had genuinely moved on and was realizing its potential as a modern, vibrant, confident city. But just under the surface, something was amiss.

In the aftermath of Belfast City Council's decision to only fly the Union flag only on special occasions, what quickly became known as the "Flegs" debacle soon exploded in everybody's face, and still drags on as we speak. The effects are palpable and varied. Not only is it having an adverse affect on business, the Christmas market, shopping and a general ability to get on with life, but the violence was so bad at one point that Childline had to vacate their building for a time. Sure, some vulnerable kids might not have been able to get through to someone they needed to talk to, but hey, it'll be worth it if those brave loyalist souls get their flag back!

While the violence and laughable uproar has caused a flare-up the likes of which we haven't seen in a long time, the underlying problems did show themselves earlier in the year. In May, perennial agitant Willie Frazer sounded off about a primary school in Tyrone having an Irish flag outside, suggesting the IRA was training kids to use weapons in there. Except, possessing narrow vision to match his narrow mind, it wasn't the Irish flag he saw, but the Italian. It was there as part of school project, along with the Polish and Turkish flags which he somehow missed.

This year also had people on the other side of the fence fulminating over Rory McIlroy daring to say he felt British. Honestly, the gall of him! You'd think a man raised Catholic would know better! Following his revelation next came the inevitable boycott campaigns, which mercifully gained negligible purchase. And in fact, amdist the depressing elements of community relations this year, that is something we can take a positive from.

In times past, such altercations and conflagrations such as this would carry with it a certain degree of community justification, as ammunition in an eternal rally of "Whatabouttery". But in today's Northern Ireland at least the daft actions of the 1% are ridiculed by the rest of us. All progress, so it's said, depends on the unreasonable man.Northern Ireland has made great progress in this last year, sportingly,civically, commemoratively, things we can be proud of and build on for 2013. It's important we don't let the unreasonable flag-beaters undo it all.

The Irish langauge, the X-Case and youth voices heard: Being Young And Irish Seminar concludes

President Higgins with participants at the Young and Irish Seminar
with the Minister for Children , Frances Fitzgerald

After months of preparation, discussion and debate, President Michael D Higgins’ much-vaunted Being Young And Irish seminar season reached its culmination at Áras An Uachtaráin on Saturday 17^th November. And what a day it was.

Scores of young people from all over the country came to the Hyde Room to issue the “Take Charge of Change” Declaration, the piece de résistance of a lengthy consultation that took in the  views of nearly a thousand young people at home and abroad.

A building as grand as the Áras is pretty good impetus for work on that scale, but moreso is a speech from the President himself, who in his barnstorming opening remarks said that “There is no part of our lives that should not be subject to critical review”. In the ensuing workshop discussions, the young people in attendance went on to very much prove him right.

During the seminar we were presented with analysis from DIT as to what was considered the most important topics throughout the whole consultation, with top of the list perhaps unsurprisingly employment, enterprise and social security, closely followed by political reform, education and equality and involving young people. But it was when young people started voting on what to include in their Declaration vision and what needed to make it a reality was far from predictable.

In a gripping session of instant voting, each table would propose various things to include (or exclude) from the final declaration, and as this was the last chance saloon to include what they thought though important for the country, the young people put their cases passionately. Some of the choices, such as a proposal to add the word “empowered” in a section pertaining to caring for vulnerable people and changing “bilingual” to multilingual” were passed easily, but others were not such slam dunks. A proposal, for example, to mention civil liberties in the declaration narrowly failed by 51% to 49%. And while a resolution to mention political reform sailed through, one that mentioned transparency and accountability was defeated by six points. From there, the debate intensified.

When a vote was taken to arrange the priorities on how to achieve their vision, the young people in the room’s top five was, to considerable surprise, headed by an emphatic commitment to the Irish language, with the social development of the language placing third. A call to legislate for the hot button X-Case placed second, with the top five rounded up by a strong statement for marriage and adoption equality and absentee ballots for Irish citizens abroad. More on that one, no doubt, in future columns.

But it was the noticeable lack of any reference to health, especially mental health, in the Top 5 that caused one of the biggest stirs of the day. Some claimed if those were the priorities, he’d probably be emigrating. But it was Aisling Concannon, Officer for Students with Disabilities at Trinity College, who became the de facto spokesperson of the case for mental health as a priority. She became the focal point of the discussion after stating on Twitter she was “livid that priorities were all wrong”, and that given the importance of the topic at earlier discussions (and in general), it was very disappointing that it didn’t feature. 

When I talked to her afterwards, she thought it was scant consolation that while health came up as a topic, it wouldn’t be mentioned in the declaration, especially given the age group represented in the room. “The people reading the declaration won’t know how much time we spent on it in the workshops. (For health as an issue) to get noticed and get attention it should have been in there, and should have been one of the prime points in there.”

While Aisling maintains her crusade for more attention to mental health (and a more holistic approach to health in general) in other ways, once the voting was done the President came back for the final declaration, and was clearly delighted with the outcome. “If anyone is still affected by the myth”, he said, “that young people are disengaged, here is your answer”, and insisted that the consultation not become “a lost conversation, it must find a real, rapid, positive response”. One hope for such a response is the Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, who also spoke at the Declaration. Her speech, apparently pre-prepared, was slightly cautious and bloodless but that did not dim the positivity and determination of the room, who in their declaration committed themselves to action, to fighting apathy and encouraging participation. In fact, within hours of the Being Young seminar concluding, a legacy project was set up which will meet by the end of the year.

In 1916, Padraig Pearse made his Proclamation of the Republic to a handful of bewildered passers-by outside the GPO. In that Proclamation, he put the case for cherishing all the children of the nation equally. 96 years later, a small bit up the road, hundreds of young people of the nation followed that legacy not just by asserting their voice and engaging in debate, but also committing their actions. The seminar may be over, but the work is just beginning.

You can see the full report here:

Belfast's Marie Stopes clinic -- the last thing vulnerable women need is a culture war over abortion

Dawn Purvis at the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast

At the very start of October, I became one of the official diaspora. I have a new job (in the glamorous world of TV production) in a new city (Manchester) and generally couldn’t be more chuffed.

What I am decidedly unchuffed about though is news from the city I left behind: Belfast. It seems that the unholy (and I use that term advisedly) forces of anti-choice zealotry are to descend upon Great Victoria Street this week to protest a Marie Stopes clinic that is opening there and eventually try to shut it down. Those opposing the clinic such as politician Jim Allister, a man who has found himself back in the 1950’s without a DeLorean, and Precious Life spokeswoman Bernadette Smyth claim that there is no need or want for such a clinic in Northern Ireland. Riiiight...

1,007 women went to England and Wales from Northern Ireland last year for an abortion. Expressed as a percentage of the whole population that accounts for 0.056% of the population; a twentieth of a percent. Bernadette Smyth suggests herself the amount of women traveling for abortions has reduced by a third over the last 15 years.  So why then, given the NI public’s supposed attitudes to abortion and the statistically miniscule amount of women from there who’ve availed of them, does a Marie Stopes clinic constitute such a moral menace? You’d think if that was the case they’d just let them set up, see tumbleweed go through their premises, lose money and pack up again. But no, logic never was one of the hallmarks of the Every Sperm Is Sacred Patrol.

Read more: Major security for Northern Ireland’s first abortion clinic in Belfast

Alas, the abortion debate lies uneasily at the intersection between compassionate pragmatism and pupil-dilating absolutism. The Marie Stopes clinic will provide a range of sexual health services, one of which will be providing a pill for women up to nine weeks pregnant to take if they, for only the most serious health reasons, no longer wish to be pregnant. Even though Northern Ireland’s abortion laws are literally an era behind the rest of the UK (abortion has been legal since 1967 in England, Wales and Scotland), this much is currently legal. And yet, as is the case in the South, hardline anti-choicers want to take something that isn’t legal (and isn’t even under threat of becoming legal any time soon) and make it super duper illegal.

One thing pro and anti choice people do agree on though is that the ideal number of abortions a year would be zero. But, living as we do in a far from ideal world, there has to be some facility for those thousand or so women who desperately need help. If it were only one woman in the whole province in need of that help, the Marie Stopes clinic’s presence would still be justified.

But try telling that to those who proclaim to be pro-life but never say a word about a child’s welfare post-womb, picket services for vulnerable women and throw words like “murder” around while they’re doing it. It never fails to amaze that for people who seem to care so deeply about the life of the unborn, they can be so callous in their treatment of actual human beings.

President Higgins' last big push to hear the voice of the diaspora - Seeking a new vision of Ireland

Ireland's President Michael D Higgins wants to hear from the Diaspora

The President’s landmark series of Young & Irish seminars may nearly be at an end (the final seminar takes place this weekend in Galway) but there is still a chance for young Irish people abroad to have their say on the burning issues affecting them, with the deadline for submissions to The President being the 29^th September. In fact, that’s why the seminars are so-called.

Speaking to a small group of reporters (of which I was one) on Saturday in Monaghan, President Higgins revealed that originally the title of the series was Young in Ireland, but was amended to facilitate the great throngs of young people who have since left the country and to make sure they were not forgotten. Higgins takes his role as President of all the people of Ireland very seriously and is confident that the emigration of now is not the same as that of the 50’s or 80’s, due in no small part to the advances in technology. He said that Ireland’s young people abroad, no matter how let down by the country they’ve felt, are determined not to turn their back on the country and noted that submissions to him both foreign and domestic were very similar in tone and scope. No matter where they were, young Irish people’s hopes and dreams for the country were one and the same.

One thing that has been remarkable about the seminars so far is the way in which the young people attending have responded to the President, and how he responded to them. During the day he said that no young person wanted anything at the expense of anyone else, they just wanted a better Ireland. In a world where young people are often portrayed as selfish, wanton and inert, it goes a very long way to hear someone in authority say that as clearly as President Higgins. Young people respond to him because of the clear respect he shows them, and his want and need to go to bat for young people is clear.

And ultimately, that is what we all, not just young people need: someone to go to bat for us. To fight our corner. To be an assuring force in a very uncertain world. The scope of the Being Young & Irish seminars is very wide and everything from education and innovation to tourism, sport and national pride have been mentioned in the discussions, and they’re vitally important things. But, the world could be instantly made better with two things taken into consideration: that your opinions and aspirations as a citizen no matter your status matters, and that the hard work and effort you do to express them and make it real is appreciated. President Higgins knows this, and lives this.

All over the world, young people from Ireland are currently living and working, trying to make their way in the world, but not giving up hope on the country from whence they came. If you’re one of those young people, The President wants to hear from you, and though your vision for Ireland might be several years down the road, Michael D Higgins wants to travel it with you. 

You can submit your vision of Ireland to the President by the 29th September at http://www.president.ie/makeasubmission/

Being Young And Irish - what are Ireland's young people saying about their country?

Michael D Higgins and Ireland's Youth at the Being Young & Irish launch

This weekend is going to be an eventful one for me. Not only are my home country of Donegal playing in their first All-Ireland since before I received my first holy communion, but it's also the northern leg of President Higgins' series of Being Young & Irish seminars, with Monaghan following on from Dublin and Cork. So what have been young people's priorities so far?

On a daily basis the Being Young & Irish Facebook page post submissions made by young people all over the country and they range from impassioned ideas on how to improve mental health awareness and facility, equality and preserving cultural identity, but on both seminar days so far some large themes came to the fore.

One of the striking areas where ideas and interest was high was in education, where there was a near unanimous wish for wholesale reform of the educational system. Specifically, young people wish to see a change to the stultifying status quo, especially at secondary school level, with a more holistic approach that would integrate life skills, creativity, debates and innovation, as well as taking a fundamental look at how subjects are taught, what is covered on the curriculum and a focus on political education. It's clear based on the reactions of the young people that they see changing the fundamentals of education, by altering they very way we interact with the education system, it is from there that further new ideas and innovations can come in other facets of life.

The second, very encouraging element was the willingness of the young people not just to passively postulate on the issues of the day, but to take active ownership of them. In Dublin, the young people succinctly proposed a "Get Up Off Your Arse Day" and the Cork meeting also emphasised a push towards volunteering and putting plans into actions by strengthening the bonds in their community.

Related to that was the need for young people to challenge and refute stereotypes that dog them, especially in the media, and the best way to do is to make clear how willing they are to contribute, both locally and nationally. To that end there were calls for a national youth panel, to consult on affairs of state that substantially affected young people, and the more general call for accountability between the state's citizens and its' government was a very popular one.

Even though the Being Young and Irish consultation process is only half way through, there's still time to add something to the discussion. If you think have something valuable to contribute to the conversation about Ireland's future, share it with us at www.president.ie/makeasubmission. You never know where it might lead.