Monday
My last day of a week in Boston. I switch on CNN to hear Barack Obama fingering Ireland as one of the countries to which the USA exports labour.
He specifically brackets us with India and the old Eastern block. Ominously, he is answering a question about where he will raise money to fund his middle class tax cuts. Corporate taxes are his target. Ireland is specifically in his sights.
I freeze, but I cannot blame Obama. He owes Ireland nothing and has done little to court the Irish vote. A president without Irish baggage is not good news for us. Any move by Barack to coerce US multinationals home could be devastating for Ireland. The first leg of the Celtic Tiger — construction — is already amputated. The removal of the second leg — multinationals — would cripple Ireland. If Barack is elected tomorrow, Brian Cowen should take the first aeroplane to Illinois.
On the plane home I read John Murray of RTE’s hilarious new book on business jargon. It will make a great Christmas present. It takes pomposity apart. It pokes fun at captains of industry by name and takes lumps out of all the social partnership waffle.
Continue reading ‘We’re Not On Obama’s Radar’
On October 22nd I will be bringing forward my Broadband Bill during Private Members Time in the Seanad. I published my bill a year ago and still the Government has failed to provide universal, high-speed broadband to every household and business in Ireland. I am committed to pushing my bill through the Houses and I would like to enlist your support once more. Continue reading ‘My Broadband Bill’
HAS the board of Aer Lingus gone walkabout?
The wobbly old airline, just out of the warm womb of public ownership, carrying baggage galore, has betrayed its semi-state ancestors. Burdened by a bombed-out share price, struggling with soaring fuel costs and rooted in a crumbling island economy, Aer Lingus faces a grim future. Worst of all, its steadfast chairman, John Sharman, is perched in the departure lounge, quitting at a time of crisis for the airline industry.
Continue reading ‘Aer Lingus Reaches For A Star’
The Governments economic policies are smug and very aspirational. An extraordinary complacency has sunk into the body politic, those running the economy, the Department of Finance and others. They feel that somehow, because we were successful when times were good, our economic success will extend for another five or ten years. I do not feel this is the case. I think we are running into trouble and are refusing to recognise this.
Continue reading ‘Governments Complacency on Broadband Fails Economy’
The Copyright Bill was debated in the Seanad on Wednesday. An uncontentious Bill, its purpose is to regularise the position as regards the lending of copyright works through the public library system, and to remunerate authors for the lending of their works.
Minister Michael Ahern spoke for the government on the Bill. He told the House that an advisory committee would be established to advise on the implementation of the scheme, and that its members would be appointees of the Minister. However, as has been so often been the case with such boards, it is more likely to be filled with those with political loyalties to honour rather than those with expertise in the field. This is what I told the House:
Continue reading ‘Hurray! The Government Is Going To Have Another Outlet For Party Political Patronage!’
Published February 8th, 2007 in Economy, Health, Social Partnership
I cannot understand the reluctance in both Houses of the Oireachtas to discuss the very delicate and sensitive nurses’ pay claim. The nurses should be conceded this claim, 10% or not, because they deserve it for good and humane reasons and because the market will demand the claim be conceded sooner or later.
Continue reading ‘Nurses Claim Exposes a Major Flaw in Social Partnership’
Published June 30th, 2006 in Economy, Social Partnership
It is completely and utterly foolish to say that because social partnership happened from 1987 onwards that it is responsible for our economic success. The reason people say this is that it is a great way of patting ourselves on the back for the economic success that has taken place.
The economic success has got far more to do with two other factors — the great decision taken by Donogh O’Malley more than 40 years ago to have free education, a magnificent decision; and the other, which is less palatable to this House, is the incoming multinationals who provided the jobs and the engine for the economic recovery. Continue reading ‘Social Partnership: Unrepresentative and Undemocratic’
I am seeking a debate on Aer Lingus. I gather that a decision on the privatisation of the airline is due shortly. I want such a debate because I fear that the decision will be taken outside this House. It will be taken at the partnership talks and there is a coincidence of timing here. The decision, however, should be taken by the Oireachtas and the Government - not by the unions and employers.
Published February 7th, 2006 in Economy, Social Partnership
ICTU boss David Begg, when he begins the partnership talks, will probably carry in his pocket, to be charitable to him, about 20% of the support of the Irish workforce. He represents approximately 30% of the workforce in a very vague way, or he can claim to, but that is even in dispute. How many of those support social partnership?
What about all those people who are not affiliated to ICTU? Where do the multinationals stand on this particular issue? Virtually none of their workforce is a member of a trade union.
On top of that none of them, as an employer, is represented at the talks Who does IBEC represent? IBEC’s paymasters are the big banks, AIB, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank, the big monopoly, CRH, and who else? Continue reading ‘Oh No! Another 10 Years of Social Partnership!’
That is what I argued in the Seanad today. However, some Senators prefer the arguments to be boiled down to the simplistic “Boston vs Berlin” argument, as these excerpts reveal:
Mr. Ross: It is difficult to say “thank you” to the United States, and it is not necessary to do so. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that without the entry of American companies in the economy, the boom would not have occurred. That is the principal explanation for the Irish economy outstripping its European colleagues so obviously and consistently. I am a little more simplistic than academics such as Senator Mansergh—— Continue reading ‘US Companies, not Irish Pay Deals, Underpin the Boom’
