Now, Eamonn.. the Next Steps..

Anyone with even a passing interest in politics will recall a particular slogan that Fianna Fail used in advance of the 2007 General Election. It went "Now.. the Next Steps". Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen told anyone who would listen that they had brought the Country to it's finest economic hour, and that now they were the people who would lead it forward even further.

And my, my, my .. what an interesting journey those "next steps" have proven to be!!

Today, as I pick up the Irish Times, I see that the Labour Party has surged in the opinion polls from 14% up to 24%. Eamonn Gilmore is the most popular leader in the Country. Fianna Fail are in meltdown, and while nobody is foolish enough to think that an election now would be a good thing, it's clear that if one were to be held, Labour would be kingmakers.

Even on a very simple calculation, not allowing, admittedly for the vagaries of Proportional Representation, 24% of the vote could potentially see Labour returning a TD in every one of the 41 Dail constituencies. While accepting that 41 seats is probably unrealistic, there is every possibility that the 'Spring tide' of 1992 could be repeated... i.e. thirty seats plus.

However, if Eamonn Gilmore wants to turn his opinion poll success into real seats, there is something that he needs to do, and do cleary and unambiguously.

He needs to make it known that Labour will not do Coalition business with Fianna Fail.

So far, this is a question that Mr. Gilmore has failed to answer with any clarity. This is unusual for him, as for as long as I have followed politics, there are few who speak with his clarity or directness of language.

In 1992, Dick Spring, with 33 seats, made a massive, unforgiveable mistake, by cutting a deal with Albert Reynolds. In 1997, despite the good performance of the FG/Lab/DL Rainbow in the interim, the party suffered an angry backlash, and saw its number of seats more than halved.

If Eamonn Gilmore wants to ensure todays poll figures are translated into votes, he must start now, and continue at every opportunity until the election comes, whenever it comes, to make it crystal clear, there will be NO deals with FF..

That, for him, is "The Next Step"..

Dear Batt ...

Todays entry takes the form of an open letter to the Minister for Education.

Dear Minister O'Keeffe,
I write to you today, not just in my professional capacity, but as a parent. I'm a parent of a child with special needs. You'll remember James, if you think for a moment. When you were a TD in Cork South Central, I went to see you at your clinic. I was worried about the future of his little school, Sonas. I was also worried about his prospects of moving to a Primary School when, at the age of 6, he would be too old for Sonas. At the time, Minister, you reassured me. You said that the Government had a strong policy on Special Needs Education, and that I need not worry. As it turned out you were right. James, who has mild Autism, moved from Sonas, to a newly established unit at St. Columbas in Douglas. There, I am thrilled to say, he has thrived. In a small class, with a highly experienced teacher, and with Special Needs Assistants, he has learned to read, write, spell, add and subtract, and even recite his tables. He loves school (OK.. hates homework but you can't have everything..) and his mother and I marvel every day at the progress he has made. We could not be happier.

Now, Minister, we fear that you are on a mission to spoil everything.

Three weeks into the new term, we got a letter from the school. Because of your departments decision to limit funding to cover substitute teachers, we now face the possibility of James being sent home if his class teacher gets sick. You claimed publicly, when I put this question to you, that your department had provided €2m in extra funding to avoid such a situation, but guess what, Minster.. even if that money exists.. the Principal has no record of its provision, much less an idea how to claim it... and neither does any other principal that I've spoken to! You were asked to give the Special Needs sector an exemption from the substitution cutbacks, yet all you could produce was a stock answer written by the civil servants in your office, justifying the slashing of the sick-cover budget!


We now must live with the certainty that James will be sent home if his teacher is ill,
because the School simply cannot manage the situation under its present resources. It's not just a matter of letting the boys into another class for the day. It just wont work!

Now, just as this sinks in, after you failed to address it, Minister, you unleash another lash at my son and his classmates. The mandarins in your Department have come up with the idea that money will be saved by closing down special classes and forcing the pupils in them to have to integrate into mainstream. A number .. nine.. has been plucked out of the air and any school that doesn't have nine kids with special needs, is to face losing its special class..


Minister, this is a disgrace, an injustice and a public outrage.

It amounts to a calculated move by your Department to attack the softest of all targets, to impose hardship on the most vulnerable, and to ruthlessly pennypinch in the most cynical and targetted way. It's a move that will save a mere pittance, but a move that will slow, and in many cases, even stop .. or worse still, reverse the wonderful progress being made by children like my little boy.

We are lucky. James's school has the numbers, and he is likely to be unaffected. Others, however, including families that I know well, cannot be assured of the same. On the day that the Government injects €7 Billion of taxpayers money into the banks, to bail them out of a hole they dug for themselves, you are, without a qualm of conscience, preparing to disrupt the education of vulnerable youngsters, for the sake of what in those terms, are mere pennies.

Batt, you and I have met many many times.

I've been a constituent of yours, and covered your political career for twenty years.

We've met socially and had a pint and a laugh together on many an occasion.

When the Taoiseach elevated you to high office last Summer, I thought of my son, and smiled to myself. I figured.. "Batt is one of the good guys. James will be fine while he's in charge.."


How wrong I was. How disappointed I was to be. How my confidence in you was to be shattered.

How you have let me down.


Best personal regards, as always,
PJ

What Would the French Make of It?

The Country, as Uncle Gaybo used to say, is Banjaxed. Utterly Banjaxed. No doubt its a banjaxment that we will recover from someday, but don't hold your breath and make sure you have spare underpants, because we'll be waiting a bit. There's been a lot of talk about public sector, private sector and the like, but something occurred to me last night?

Would the French stand for this?

I don't like the French .. OK, sweeping statement, I know, but in my limited experience of them, I don't like them. I find them cranky, pernickity and not visitor friendly.. and it's a shame that they live in such a lovely Country! However, on the other hand, I admire them for one thing.

The French don't take any crap from their Government!

The tax increase, dressed up as a 'Pension Levy' for Public Sector workers, is not, in theory a bad idea. Public jobs are, for the most part, secure, permanent, and come with a guaranteed pension, which is a hell of a lot more than can be said for tens of thousands of Private Sector jobs, my own included. I can see the logic of levying the public sector in some way, to reflect this situation. However, what has now happened, is codology in the extreme.

Why should a Staff Nurse, or a Guard or a Teacher lose €60 or more a week? The same is true for a Soldier, Fireman or Ambulance Paramedic. Times are hard enough without losing that much in hard cash! €240 a month is a couple of utility bills, or a Grocery shop for a family! I know that I could not afford a pay cut of that severity.

A blanket levy like this is plain stupid, and the anger it has caused is utterly understandable.

It's not hitting those who caused the arse to fall out of everything, and the burden is not being spread fairly. Ordinary, hard working people, in jobs with a fairly ordinary wage, are taking a hit, while the gangsters and shysters continue to pass 'Go' and continue to collect their massive paychecks.. not to mention their outlandish bonuses.

I'm not an economist or an accountant, so I don't have another solution.. and anyway it's not my job to come up with one.. but here's the point of the title of this entry ...

If they did this in France, the place would simply stop!

There would be a general strike and nothing would budge until such time as the drawing board was dusted off and the issue re-addressed.

I still remember the row over the price of Diesel.. the truckers and the trawlermen and others who needed diesel to operate, simply said "up wit zis we vill not put!".. and the Country came to a halt.

Halted, it stayed, as well, until there was a response.

Will it happen here..? Will we down tools and refuse to pick them up again until such time as the cuts and changes that we all acknowledge are necessary, are applied fairly and appropriately?

Will we demand a return to the drawing board with a united cry of "NO!"

To quote the words of James Gogarty at the Planning Tribunal.. "Will We F**K?"

Heartwarming Decency of a Worried People

I'm writing this in the Parish Hall in Kilbrittain in West Cork, where a local woman, Ann Corcoran has been missing now for over two weeks. She's a widow, who lives alone not far from here, with just her two dogs for company. She was last seen on the 18th of January, and spoke to a friend on the phone on the 19th, but nothing since.

This entry, however, is not really to do with the why's or the wherefore's of the case.
I just have to comment on the wonderful community effort that's going on here as the search continues.

The papers, radio and TV are taken up with details of the search.. It involves Civil Defence, Search & Rescue personnel, Gardai and dozens of locals, some of whom have taken time off to be here and play their part. Their task is tough and grim, and they deserve much praise.

However, as they walk the fields, search ditches and thickets, trawl the rivers and streams and explore outhouses across a wide and difficult terrain, there's another crew, going without thanks, and even without much recognition, who are keeping this operation, literally, fed and watered.

About ten local women are ever present here in the well-kept little parish hall. The Burko Boiler is on overtime. Huge pots of home-made soup, full of tasty goodness and hand cut ingredients, are simmering on a stove. Thick, generous wedges of ham and beef sit alongside pans and pans of thickly buttered bread. Every unused Christmas tin of buscuits for miles has been purloined, and whoever is baking those little buns will find a place at the Right Hand of the Lord Himself.

The crew must be kept fed. Their strengh must be kept up. Their morale, no matter how bleak the scene, must be maintained. Before they go out, and when they come back, they must have their bellies filled and their hands warmed on a hot mug.

As well as the crew working long hours here at the Parish Hall, there's yet another layer to this operation. As I sit in the corner of the hall, at a table given to myself and my colleagues to work on, I'm watching delivery after delivery.. fresh supplies.

I met a family friend here yesterday. She lives a mile or two out the road to Ballinspittle. She and a neighbour had spent the previous evening making sandwiches and baking. "We all have to do our bit, don't we?", she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the World.

But, for these people, living in a tiny village a few miles from Bandon, and just over half an hours drive from busy and bustling Cork City, it is just that.

In a time when so many simple values have been lost, and when possessions and material goods have become our new Gods and our status symbols, the simple, straightforward decency of this community will, for me at least, be a lasting memory of my few days working here.

Like us all, I hope Ann Corcoran is found alive, and sadly, like us all, my hopes of that are failing every day, but I will never forget how her Community, despite it's worry and sadness, came up trumps when the chips were down.

Shock! Horror! For once I agree with Biffo!

A friend of mine, who happens to be a County Councillor, said to be tonight "where the f**k are we headed? What are they going to come up with?.. the Country is f**ked, and none of 'em seem to have a clue!.." How right he was. Mind you, from the reading of the Sunday papers, it seems that Brian Cowen is veering away from pay cuts. For once, and I'm scared to my bone marrow to hear myself say this .. but I believe he's right.

Pay Cuts won't get us out of this mess - in fact they will make it worse for the Ordinary Joe. Here's why.. if you take Ordinary Joe, with an 'average' mortgage, he's got a few quid more in his pocket over the last few months, thanks to the interest rate changes. If he drives a car, the cost of a tank of petrol has fallen by at least a tenner.. Both of those reductions have put a couple of hundred yoyos a month back into Ordinary Joe's pocket.

With me so far? OK..

Now, unless I've had my head in a bucket for the past six months, every second purveyor of Goods and Services in this Country is bemoaning the fact that people are not spending money. Now, take Ordinary Joe, with say €250 a month extra in his pocket.. it's only simple logic, is it not, to assume that he might spend some of it - €20 here.. €30 there.. €50 somewhere else.. even if he spent half of it.. that's €125 put back into the economy.

Now, as they say.. do the math..

If we assume that there are two million or so people working.. don't argue its a nice round figure and I like them.. then, by my calculation, that's €250 MILLION a month gone straight back into the economy. In a year, that's Three Billion. That, in any mans language, will support an awful lot of jobs.

However, if the Turlough O'Sullivans of this World have their way, Ordinary Joe will have his wages cut. The few bob he got back from lower interest rates, etc. will be gone.. and with it, his little bit of increased spending power!

Surely it's a no brainer?

By all means, lets have a pay freeze.. lets even cancel the National Wage deal for a year.. even eighteen months.. but for goodness sake, lets not cut pay. It might make Accounting Sense.. but it makes no Common Sense at all! It seems that Brian Cowen is baulking on pay cuts.

Baulk, Biffo, Baulk! ..

I don't think I'll be making a habit of it.. because no doubt you'll have me tearing my hair out over something else.. but on pay cuts, Taoiseach, we are agreed..

So Here We Go

Hello there.. and straight away let me say that all blame lies with my old buddy Seamus Whelehan http://www.corkmedia.net/ for what you are about to read! I'm an old fogey, a bit of a Victor Meldrew, if you like, and completely new to this. However, young Whelehan reckons that blogging is the new going out - or something to that effect, and that I should get on here every day and write. So, here we go... watch this space! By the way, in the picture above, I'm the one standing next to the great Barry John.. L-R the photo is Barry O'Mahony, Frank O'Brien, Barry John and Me.. This pic was taken in Cardiff Blues Rugby Club on the night of the 2008 Heineken Cup Final. We had ambled in for a pint or three, and there he was, a living legend of Rugby, having a few beers and chatting about the match. Frank did an interview for the radio and we spent a brilliant half hour in the company of an All Time Great. Sometimes I love my job!