The big chill

Forget to crosspost this - last week's snow piece on GlobalComment

Ireland is covered in a blanket of snow. If you listen carefully, you can hear pipes bursting all over the country. Electricity supply is spotty. Heating oil delivery is delayed. In fact, the country is closed for business.

Unlike other countries in the Northern Hemisphere, Ireland has little experience in the application of emergency plans. In November half the country was under water. In 2010 snow and ice have conquered the land. Indeed weather forecasters speak often of ‘treacherous’ conditions. I wonder whether shopping in Newry or the weather conditions is the worst betrayal.

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In other countries, officials resign when they fuck up

From the Irish Times

Interior Minister Robert Kalinak told reporters he had accepted the resignation of the head of the border and foreigners' police, Tibor Mako, whose department was in charge of the operation.

"What happened at Poprad airport was a stupid human error," Mr Kalinak said. "It is a clear an individual error, not a system failure. Disciplinary proceedings against the policeman responsible are under way."

Is the government taking note?

State of the nation

It is a sad and sobering event when a senior Minister in charge of Education comes out and proceeds to spout his confidence in a dying leader. Cowen is a ghost. He looks like he has given up and Batt O'Keeffe's words are so at odds with the mood of the country that it would be laughable if these people were not in charge of running the country.

"This fellow has bottle and has a fabulous vision. He has a virtuous vision of Ireland. It’s unsullied by selfishness or any other machination. His approach is for the common good which he’ll put before anything personal.

There’s no leader who is closer to Fianna Fáil as a party and has the interest of the party at heart more than he has. It would hurt him very much if the party suffered under his leadership. And come the next elections, I believe we can come good."

Oh yes, St Biffo. The incapable leader. The man who was minister for Finance and did nothing to check government spending. The man who has fumbling every through, has vested interests in Anglo Irish, property developments, the catholic church and maintaining a stranglehold on the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Brian Cowen missed two press conferences on his latest trip to China (around the time of Lisbon 2) because he was hungover. The man was asked on national television whether he had a drinking problem.

O Keeffe

believes no one has examined how a government and a taoiseach with historically low popularity ratings has managed to survive one of the biggest political crises to have occurred since the foundation of the State.

He is wrong. People have asked that question every day. The fact is that the whip system ensures party support on pain of explusion. When threats don't work then Healy Rae gets a new hospital of Kenmare and other bribes are dispensed.

The role of the Whip is primarily that of the disciplinarian for all Government Parties i.e. to ensure that all deputies, including Ministers, attend for Dáil Business and follow the Government line on all issues.

This is why the opposition cannot win a vote of no confidence. No appeals to sense, reason or rationality works because deputies vote whatever way they are told to. Why lose the support of the party on an issue that only affects the "plain people of Ireland"?

The only way to get rid of the government is social unrest or violent action. Historically neither has been particularly effective. Of course, it would help if people did not vote for the boy from around the corner. Parochialism is one of the most corrupting influences in Ireland today. Add cronyism into the bargain and the result is a failed state. On the surface it may look ok but underneath it is rotten to the core.

I applied for disability allowance. I have a condition that is debilitating and covered in the documentation on disability. I had the testimony and reports from five doctors. I did not go to my local TD. It took twelve months and three rejections before I received the allowance. I know that I could have probably got it in three if I had asked my TD to put pressure on the Department of Social and Family Affairs. But I don't want to live in that kind of country.

The institutions of the state are corrupt and confused. The Minister for Education flaunts his feigned ignorance of the ability of the electorate to with their consent to be governed by this shower of gombeen men and women.

What really happened in Cork

I've a new article up on GlobalComment:

About twenty eight hours after Ireland was kicked out of the World Cup, the city of Cork, the Republic of Ireland’s second largest city, was flooded by the semi-state company, Electricity Supply Board (ESB). Two weeks of heavy rain that amounted to four to six times the norm, combined with 40 to 60 millimetres of rain fall in the preceding 36 hours, and the release of water from the Inniscarra dam caused the river Lee to burst its banks and flood the city centre. €100 million is the conservative price that will need to be paid to clean up the mess.

RTE (the state broadcaster) informed the public on the evening of Thursday 19th November that water would be released from the Inniscarra dam and that the area around Inniscarra might flood. The towns in West Cork of Macroom, Bandon, Skibbereen and Ballyvourney were already impassable. I diverted through Mallow and managed to make it home, skirting several flooded roads with only a three hour delay. The entire journey I was glued to the national radio stations to get more information. There was little of any substance.

In the early hours of Friday morning 20 November, people living in the inner city awoke to the sound of rushing water entering their homes. The flood was the largest in living memory, possibly a hundred-year event. Students at University College Cork were seen swimming through the freezing flood water to reach residence halls that are still without electricity or running water. Civil Defence began evacuating older people by boat from 2AM.

The rest of Cork awoke to a flooded city. Businesses were destroyed; medical clinics were under water; a five star hotel was half underwater; and students wake-boarded on the streets. Business owners and employees rolled up their trousers and cleaned up as best as they could. A woman mucking out a hair dressing salon said, “this I can fix… eventually,” referencing the economic difficulties and feelings of helplessness.

Likewise, staff at the Mercy, a public hospital with three hundred beds, were not warned of the possibility of flooding. The emergency room had to be evacuated. Doctors, nurses, support staff, lab techs and many others took extraordinary measure to be at work on time, using any transport available. Civil Defence played chauffeur to most but others canoed, kayaked, used dinghies, cycled and walked through waist-high raging flood water.

The people of Cork pride themselves on a certain self-sufficiency. This attitude developed partly as the identity of Cork as a rebel county and partly because the people cannot rely on the government in Dublin to come to their aid in times of need. While Cork was inundated, national radio and television news provided little information. While volunteers were helping to clean out the hospital emergency room, the government was appealing to FIFA and the French government to replay the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifier. It was only after the floods that the media started paying attention to what was happening in the second largest city in the republic.

From Friday morning, public servants, who were due to take part in a one day strike on 24 November, declared that they would not be taking part in work stoppage because of the civic emergency in Cork. Public servants in other inundated counties made similar declarations, following where Cork leads.

Gradually, information began to trickle into the national media and by 13:00 on Friday afternoon, the national media was reporting on the crisis. By 13:30 politicians were praising the efforts of the ESB in an attempt to cover up the fact that no specific warnings were made with regard to the city. The ESB released 535 cubic metres of water per second into a swollen river, claimed they sent a press release and informed the city council, and then declared that informing the public was not their department.

The City Council were effective enough at mobilising Civil Defense once the scale of the flood became clear. However, the result of either miscommunication between the ESB and the City Council or negligence or incompetence, is that 20 000 households are without water. Bottled water was sold out at Lidl and Aldi (the less expensive supermarket chains) by 11:30 on Friday 20 November. 123 000 people are still queuing for drinking water from tankers and boil notices have been issued to the rest of the population. There is temporary accommodation for those who have been displaced but the Taoiseach (prime minister) has declared that it is too early to discuss the issue of compensation.

The people of Cork have shown great resilience and community spirit in the past days. Hopefully, an official investigation will reveal the reasons why Cork was flooded and whose hand was at the wheel.

Greens don't care about life outside the capital

Gormless is a City Green and clearly has no interest in Ireland's biodiversity or the preservation of living off the land.

Gormley's spokesman said: "This research was on political attitudes in Dublin South East to assist the minister in policy formulation. This expenditure is permissible under the expenditure guidelines and fully receipted."

When forming his policy, Gormless asked his constituents. Apparently, the custodians of the land - the farmers - do not have anything to contribute, nor indeed anybody outside Dublin. Pretty much ensures skewed research that the taxpayer funds.

In the PFG, the Greens got to destroy an industry that employs people living in the country. Not a single Green went to a fur farm to see the conditions. Not a single Green talked to the farmers. No, they just assumed that they knew best and certainly better than some muck savage from outside Dublin.

There are no alternative livelihoods put in place or a plan to deal with the hundreds of thousands of mink currently on the farms. Is there any plan at all, for that matter. Do the Greens want to get rid of mink farms because mink are cute? Are they going to ban all animal farming next? Are cows too ugly to save? After all, leather comes from cows as well as delicious beef.

The Irish Green party is a city party after all. Wouldn't want country folk to start making a fuss. "Farmers don't vote green", is the justification for this attitude. But farmers are some of the greenest people in Ireland. I wouldn't support the greens if I was a farmer. They didn't fight for REPS - the single biggest contribution to biodiversity and care of land in Ireland and the "green" party shot it down. It's just as well that they claim to be an education party because green they ain't.

Amazing the changes of heart the Greens have had since going into coalition with Fianna Fáil! No more opposition to the motorway through Tara and no more support for Shell to Sea.

Dead politicians walking

This is the end, my only friend the end... The future of Ireland contains the debt of banks and it will be decades before the coffers will fill. NAMA is about to awaken - the wolf that will devour our money, healthcare and education systems, pensions and future.

And there was a chance to stop NAMA. Green party members were balloted. They could have voted it down - voted down legislation that Dr Joseph Stiglitz called criminal. But there was no enlightened self-interest at that vote. Instead Fianna Fáil lite voted to ensure that not a single Green will get elected in the next few decades.



Dead politicians walking. In exchange for conceding NAMA, the Greens got nothing but aspirational bullshit. Words like recommend, advise, consider, examine etc. are not hard commitments, they are wishy washy feelgood bullshit to make pretty with the Greens.

They have no idea how to play hardball. Ironically they are both naive and evil. Gormley looks perpetually bewildered. Ryan's gone over to the dark side. Are there any other Greens? Not so as you'd notice.

There is no money in the kitty and there's nothing in the PFG about protecting the vulnerable. The Greens have sold the country out in exchange for power.  It's a poor strategy - short term gain at the expense of the future. Political lilliputians.

Bogband in Ireland

It's not the first time that I've railed against the internet connections available to those of us who don't live in the big shmoke. Most of the time I don't blog about it though cos my fucking connection is down. I just resume punching a cushion.

Need I even compare Ireland's broadband to that of other EU members? But when you have to downloads your emails in a graveyeard, the situation becomes ridiculous.

Locals Gina Hetherington, Carole Shinkwin, and John Cassidy connect to the internet using their laptops and mobile broadband at Kilbride cemetery from Irish Indo.

Just another failure of our government. Le sigh.