Seanad passes Criminal Justice Bill

Ireland's new Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill, which has been criticised by various opposition politicians and members of the legal profession, has passed all stages in the Seanad last night.

The Bill, which - among other elements - introduces new forms of non-jury trials for members of organised crime gangs and excludes lawyers from certain procedures, was debated in the Upper House of the Oireachtas for eight hours yesterday and finally passed at 11.30pm.

Despite objections from Fine Gael at the handling of the Bill from the outset, they supported its passage in the end, while the Labour Party, Sinn Féin and some Independent Senators opposed it.

Of the 58 Senators (two seats are currently vacant) only 42 voted on the Bill, and the result was 37:5 in favour.

In an unexpected and rather surprising move, the two Green Party Senators Dan Boyle and Déirdre de Búrca - who are part of the government and were appointed to the Seanad by Bertie Ahern as part of the coalition agreement - abstained during the final vote.
Earlier, they also voted against a government motion to proceed with the report stage last night.

Dan Boyle (left), who is also party president of the Greens, had previously expressed reservations about the Bill, but he told the Seanad that he "reluctantly" supported it.
Nevertheless Boyle and his colleague decided at the last minute to abstain.

In a statement issued this morning, Eamon Ryan - Minister for Communication, Energy & Natural Resources - has supported the abstention of his two party colleagues, without going into further details on the matter.

I wonder if last night's decision by the Senators not to support the government of which they are part is the first public sign of the end of the coalition.
As the Bill was supported by Fine Gael, the government was not in danger to lose the vote. So the abstention of the two Green Senators made really no difference to the result and could be seen as a rather cheap option for them.
However, there has been serious Green rumbling, especially from Dan Boyle, in recent months and the condition of the government coalition is anything but sound or healthy.

Speaking after the Seanad vote, the Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern (right) said it was important that "the Bill the people support" was passed before both Houses of the Oireachtas go on holidays. He hopes the Bill will be signed into law "in the not too distant future".

If this is going to happen remains to be seen, as it has been suggested that President Mary McAleese might refer it to test its constitutionality.

There is also a strong possibility that a group of lawyers, who are unhappy with parts of the Bill, might challenge it in the Supreme Court on grounds of being unconstitutional.

While the people who suffer on a daily basis at the hands of organised crime gangs - especially in parts of Dublin and in Limerick - cannot wait to see the Bill becoming law, one should not ignore the concerns of legal experts and professionals, who have to deal with it in practice.
There is no doubt that we need to tackle the ever growing problem of organised crime in Ireland, but it has to be done properly, within the framework of the law and without turning to draconian and unconstitutional measures.

There has always been crime in Ireland, as everywhere else. And some of it has been organised in various ways.
But during the eleven years Bertie Ahern (left) was Taoiseach, the number of crime gangs in Ireland has risen massively and their activities have reached unseen and unacceptable dimensions.
Ahern's ignorance and his reluctance to even go near the problem is one of the reasons for the spreading and influence of organised crime in Ireland.
There are many people who regard Bertie Ahern as a crook and even a criminal, so one has to wonder if his own problems with legal matters of various kinds might have prevented him from being tough on organised crime...

I am not a lawyer, but fairly familiar with matters of the State. And I wonder why the already existing 'Offences against the State Act', which was introduced to face the threat from politically motivated terrorist groups, could not be extended and used against those who terrorise people and threaten the existence of the State through purely criminal acts, motivated by greed and selfishness.

The Emerald Islander

Government rolls out another lame Apologist

Since both Houses of the Oireachtas (Ireland's parliament) returned from their over-extended summer holidays, the government has been immensely nervous, and rightly so. First they lost the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in June, and then they realised that the carefree cowboy policies with which they ruled Ireland for a decade of economic boom and great wealth creation have led to exactly the opposite end of the spectrum: a bust, economic recession and general poverty.

Well, that's what happens if one lets cowboys run the country and the economy, instead of letting them do what they are qualified for: looking after cows.

The 2009 Budget was brought forward, in order to give the general public the impression that 'something is being done' by the government to tackle the crisis, and simultaneously Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea (left) got an extra job. He was rolled out frequently as unofficial official spokesman of the besieged government, appeared several times on various RTÉ radio and TV programmes and gave a number of briefings for the media, on subjects unrelated to the Department of Defence. (see my entry of October 16th)

Since yesterday the Minister for defending the Indefensible - as I see him - is no longer alone on the battered ramparts of Government Buildings. To support O'Dea in his difficult new duty, the government has rolled out another lame apologist.

Senator Déirdre de Búrca (right), one of the two Green Party members appointed by Bertie Ahern to Seanad Éireann when the Greens joined the government coalition in June 2007, appeared on yesterday's Saturday View on RTÉ Radio 1 as the official government representative.

This is quite an unusual move, and one has to wonder what it means that in a time like this, when Ireland is in economic recession and the coalition government is facing the greatest loss of confidence any Irish government in living memory has experienced, a humble Senator with only 16 months of experience - and a member of the junior party in government - is sent out to defend the embattled administration.

Where is the Taoiseach? Where is the Tánaiste? And where are the senior Cabinet ministers?

Apart from their occasional appearance in Leinster House, they are nowhere to be seen or heard since Finance Minister Brian Lenihan spent about 45 minutes on Pat Kenny's RTÉ Radio 1 morning programme on October 15th, the day after he introduced his first Budget in the Dáil.

This complete absence of senior politicians from the public eye and from the media in a crisis like this is nothing but plain cowardice. The Taoiseach and his ministers know only too well that they are grasping at straws and that they are currently more unpopular than the plague.
So all they can think of is going into hiding and sending party cannon fodder out into the battles with the media.

On yesterday's programme Déirdre de Búrca, a psychologist who was for a while a Councillor for the Green Party on Wicklow County Council, did not say one word that changed the people's opinion of the government.
As expected, she was entirely apologetic and uncritical, and if one had not known better, one could have mistaken her for a typical Fianna Fáil party apparatchik. She also displayed a degree of arrogance in the discussion - especially with Fine Gael TD Dr. Leo Varadkar, the man called "a Fascist" by Fianna Fáil junior minister Conor Lenihan in the Dáil last week - which demonstrates her political inexperience. But Saturday View's presenter Rodney Rice (above left) put her well into her place and made sure that a proper and civilised discussion could take place.

It appears that Senator de Búrca expected to be given a 'free run' on the programme, making her memorised statements on behalf of the government without being challenged, attacked and cross-examined by the opposition.
Either she lives indeed - like many Green politicians - on an entirely different planet than the rest of us, or she has during her 16 months in the Seanad mutated into a little tinpot manipulator, a tendency also visible in the two Green Cabinet ministers, who are defending the government's indefensible positions lately more vigorous than anyone from Fianna Fáil.

It is amazing what a little bit of power can do to a once perfectly sound, honest and very sensible person. And it is sad to see the Green Party losing all its credibility, built up over 25 long years of political struggle, in little more than a year in government.

The Emerald Islander

The Silence of the Lambs

While Ireland is trembling with anger over the proposed new taxes and levies introduced by the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan in Tuesday's 2009 Budget, many of our politicians - from the Taoiseach down to County and City Councillors - are trying to save their political bacon.

The Councillors, who will face their voters in local elections next year, are especially jittery in the wake of the devastating blow Lenihan has landed on all of us, but in particular on the elderly, whose right to a free and full medical card is about to be withdrawn.

To no-one's surprise Fianna Fáil TDs and Councillors are particularly anxious, as they have to bear the main brunt of the public outcry. Dozens of people were queuing outside party offices and other places where TDs hold their weekly constituency surgeries this weekend to voice their anger and to register their complaints. In Limerick alone more than 60 angry citizens laid siege to the office of the Minister for Defence, unofficial government spokesman and local TD Willie O'Dea. He had not a happy weekend, and most of his colleagues were in the same situation.

Meanwhile several Fianna Fáil backbenchers are coming out into the media with more or less open criticism of the government and their party leadership, but none of them is yet prepared to go the whole hog and follow Wicklow TD Joe Behan, who resigned last week from Fianna Fáil over the budget.

What is surprising though is the complete silence of the Green Party. The junior partner in the government coalition has so far not issued a statement on the 2009 Budget and none of their six TDs - including two Cabinet members and a junior minister - and two Senators have uttered a word about it in public.
It appears that the eight green politicians in Leinster House are in some kind of retreat from reality and hope that the whole fuss will blow over before someone out here in the country realises that they are part of the government, too.

John Gormley and Eamon Ryan sat at the Cabinet table just as any other minister when the two Brians - Cowen and Lenihan - presented their plans for robbing the poor, sick and needy, while leaving the rich fat cats unscaved. And they obviously gave their agreement to the plans that became the 2009 Budget. Thus they are as guilty of the fiscal onslaught as all their Fianna Fáil colleagues and the last of the PD Mohicans, Health Minister Mary Harney (who apparently is the one who first suggested the withdrawal of medical cards from the over 70-year-olds).

If the Green Party thinks that it will not be held co-responsible as willing accomplice of Fianna Fáil and Mary Harney, it is time to wake their sleeping ecologists and show them the real world.
So far they just pretend that all the mess has nothing to do with them.

Only yesterday party leader and Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government John Gormley (left) stated that "the financial markets might be in trouble, but renewables are much more important and seeing boom times". The man who is obsessed with changing all our light bulbs still believes that by 2020 about 40% of all energy used in Ireland will come from renewable sources.

Where have you been the past six months, Mr. Gormley? Away with the faireys to change their light bulbs as well? The financial markets might not be in trouble, they are in trouble! In deep trouble in fact, not seen since the world depression of 1929. This alone could sink all your lofty green policies like a stone in a pond. But you still pretend to be green Mr. Innocent, some kind of Irish Winnie the Pooh, playing games with the two Brians, posing as Piglet and Tigger...

Gormley's Cabinet colleague Eamon Ryan (right) is taking the same route as his leader. He remained completely silent about the budget, but declared over the weekend that "renewable energy will be the cornerstone of our future". He should know, one hopes, as he is the Minister for Energy & Natural Resources. He is also the Minister for Communication, but refuses to communicate with the people about the one big subject on everyone's mind.

Former party leader Trevor Sargent (left), the man who threw 25 years of green principles over board when he brought the Greens into coalitions with Fianna Fáil, is now junior minister in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with special responsibility for Horticulture. The last time one has heard from him was more than two weeks ago, when he presented the National Organic Award 2008 to Glenisk Irish Organic Butter. Since then he has been as absent from the public eye as a unicorn and as silent as a trappist monk.

The three Green backbenchers and their two friends in the Seanad are not very visible anyway in recent times and seem to enjoy the quiet but well-paid life in Leinster House.

Currently the most active of them is Ciarán Cuffe (right), a trained architect, town planner and lecturer, who is a TD for Dún Laoghaire. He is also a fellow blogger, although sometimes with a quite strange sense for priorities. This weekend I had expected to read something about the budget and the treatment of the elderly. But no, those subjects seem indeed taboo in the Green Party now. Ciarán Cuffe is writing about the two things he knows: architecture and Dún Laoghaire.

The young Dublin TD Paul Gogarty (left) seems to restrict his statements and activities in the public eye to brief spells in intervals of between three and six months. The last time one has heard anything from him was on July 13th, when he reacted to an article in the Irish Independent. This must have been a quite exhausting deed, since he has not been seen or heard of in the media since.

Mary White (right), the party's deputy leader, TD for Carlow-Kilkenny and the only Green woman in the Dáil, even beats Paul Gogarty's silence record by two days. Her last publicly noticed activity was the launch of the first edition of her party's local constituency newsletter on July 11th. And like her Dublin colleague she keeps stumm about the outrageous budget. Is this the same Mary White whom I supported for years in local campaigns, and whom I saw standing up against the big and mighty when it did matter? She still looks like herself by appearance, but the Mary White I knew and supported would not be silent over a budget like this. They must have done something to her since she joined Dáil Éireann.

The two Green Senators are even less visible than their colleagues in the Dáil. Former TD Dan Boyle (left), who lost his seat in the 2007 general election and was then compensated with a Taoiseach's appointment to the Seanad, has not been heard of in any substantial way since he was made the Deputy Leader of the upper house last year. Maybe he is too busy running the Green's finances in the background, as he is - according to a colleague - apparently "the only Green politician who understands money".

Senator Déirdre de Búrca (right), a fellow psychologist who worked for over ten years with Rehab, made her last public appearances before the Lisbon Treaty referendum, when she campaigned together with many other government and opposition politicians for a YES vote. She was in fact the most visible Green politician in that campaign, and after the Irish people clearly rejected the treaty in the referendum, she almost disappeared from the political radar. Perhaps she needed a little rest, or maybe she was advising the government in the background on political rehab. And then she had of course to attend - together with Dan Boyle - a gathering of European Greens in France.
However, she is back in Dublin now and in fact the only one of the eight Greens in the Oireachtas who actually has made a statement on the budget. But it appears that she also - like Mary White - has left her good old self and her common sense at the door when she entered Leinster House. In a speech in the Seanad she said on Wednesday:
"I emphasise the positive aspects of the budget because we are hearing a great deal of critical commentary. Most of those criticising the budget are aware of the difficult circumstances in which the decisions were made. It is important to balance their views by commenting on the positive aspects of the budget decisions. For example, in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government investment in water services has increased to the highest level ever."

This kind of rhetoric I find especially disappointing. It is not even defending the indefensible, like Willie O'Dea does it for Fianna Fáil. No, this is holding up a stinking old cabbage and telling the world that it is a nice and fragrant rose!

When the Green Party joined the government after the 2007 general election, many observers and analysts were quite surprised, myself included. I remember that I wrote a piece about the dangers of sharing power with Fianna Fáil, reminding the Greens of the price that both Labour and the PDs have paid for their taste of power and warned them not to go into a coalition like the innocent lambs go to the butcher's house.

I think it is a very bad mistake, I wrote, but if you really have to do it, then make sure you do it wisely, independently and as a coalition partner with guts and teeth. Do not make the errors the PDs made, and which led eventually to their demise.

Well, the coalition is only a little more than one year old now, but sadly one has to realise that the Irish Green Party as we knew it for 25 years is no more. For a short-lived share of power their leadership has sold their souls and principles to Fianna Fáil.

And now, in a situation where one is waiting for their voices to be heard, there is - apart from Déirdre de Búrca's meekly bleating in the Seanad - absolutely nothing uttered from the green pastures. Sadly they did enter the coalition as a group of junior sheep, and what we witness now is the silence of these political lambs.

The Emerald Islander

P.S. There is another reason why the Green TDs and Senators have no time for such trivial and unpleasant things as the budget and the worries of the elderly over their medical cards. One can read it on their website, which gives the following enlightening instruction:
"Time to dust down the dancing shoes – the Green Party's inaugural National Ball takes place in the Lord Bagenal Hotel, Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow on Saturday 1st November.

This will be a black-tie event and tickets are priced at € 80, including a five-course meal (with a vegetarian option of course!) and entertainment by a live band."
And - as the website points out - "tickets are selling fast!"

When you meet one of them the next time, and are uregd to give them your vote, just remember this: While the world is in the deepest financial crisis since 1929, and our own country's economy is in recession, the Greens have nothing to say to us about an outrageous budget, presented by a government of which they are part. They don't give a hoot for the ever more unemployed or for the elderly who are robbed by the government of their medical cards. Instead they are enjoying themselves in style, dancing the time away at a posh ball...
They really do live on a different planet.