That bit of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!

You’d almost forget it was happening. However running alongside our presidential election we have a referendum on the subject of blasphemy. Why in the name of God with Brexit on the horizon are we talking about blasphemy?

It goes back to 1937. When the constitution was enacted a provision was made to ban blasphemy. Blasphemy is the deliberate act of causing outrage by insulting God. In Saudi Arabia it is punishable by death, as are most other offences in Saudi Arabia. For over 70 years the provision was not backed up by legislation until Dermot Ahern as Minister for Justice thought with the economy about to tank, banning blasphemy legally for the first time in Ireland was the way to go. Ireland had the dubious record of being cited by some countries with shocking human rights records in their defence of their laws on blasphemy as a result. 

Before I go any further let me say I’ll vote to remove the reference to blasphemy from the constitution.  I say that as a churchgoer that any faith which feels it needs the legal protection of the state to its view of its God is built on quicksand. After 2,000 years of Christianity and 1500 years of Islam, why is there the need to protect a view of God or to enforce that true civil law? If a comedian or a writer can cause enough outrage that thousands of years of faith are undermined, then sooner or later that faith will wither anyway.  And I don’t believe any faith is about to disappear.  The original blasphemer was executed on Good Friday 2,000 years ago because of the outrage he caused to the High Priests and Pharisees at the time.

To be fair, the Christian churches were well and truly shattered by the time,years of parody by Monty Python and the Life of Brian.  What religious fundamentalists could have gone with blasphemy if the section in the constitutional provision is retained , well your guess is as good as mine. Blasphemy legislation is a deliberate come on for anyone seeking notoriety. Should the state by its laws facilitate someone bent on seeking publicity? I don’t think so.

but not because of  Dermot Ahearn arrived on the scene with this legislation. When a law is implemented, it’d be nice to know where it leads. Religious fundamentalism cannot be legislated for either.

I doubt if Dev ever considered that in the 21^st century his constitution might have provided the grounds for fundamentalists to seek protection in Irish law for someone who questions Islam on facebook which operates out of Ireland, perhaps in Arabic? Because that is what our current law can allow. Dev might likely have raised an eyebrow if he could visualise as happened in Indonesia that a muslim running for election who called on people of other faiths to vote for him was prosecuted under blasphemy law for that speech.

Blasphemy is a Pandora’s box. I do not want to see faiths from Kinnegad to Trinidad turn our judicial system into a debating chamber where competing arguments try to out outrage one another. Once it is opened who knows where it may lead. Best to use the ballot box to keep Pandora’s box shut

Yesford!

In the beginning there was the 8^th and the 8^th became law and dwelt amongst us. In the end it was dispatched in Wexford by almost 50,000 voters.  It’s a turning point for Ireland. I got the feeling at the start of this week that as the week progressed the more the gap between yes and no widened. Last night I predicted to some on our Together for Yes campaign that the gap will be significantly wider than we might dare think.

In the end it was over 23,000 votes. The count started at 9AM in St Joseph’s Community Centre in Wexford. When the council officials advised that they would open 25 ballot boxes each time it was clear to both Yes and No camps that we didn’t have enough to tally.

Former Senator Jim Walsh approached me and proposed to jointly tally. We shook hands and agreed to share figures. I’ll say one thing about Jim Walsh, personally he’s as decent as the day is long. I’d agree with him on some issues and on social issues we’d diverge. He told me he is bitterly disappointed with the result. I told him I know how it feels to lose in an election.  I also pointed out that

into the future that another Dáil decided to change the law to be more restrictive, that is the right of that generation.

And so it was to the tally, By and large it was a small group although one person from the No side told me I was a hypocrite for going to church as I was an abortionist. My colleague Cllr George Lawlor was rounded on for singing at church ceremonies while the luckless Minister Paul Kehoe was rounded on by a prominent No campaigner as he left the count with his young daughter and was verbally abused for legislating for murder.

By lunchtime it was all over. 190 boxes opened and tallied. A small crowd awaited the declaration and the result was Repeal 49,935 and to retain 23,069.

So where do we go from here? On reflection it is the end of a liberalising journey for Ireland since the 1990’s when homosexuality was decriminalised, divorce introduced and contraception regularised among other issues.   But the Iona Institute won’t be going away. They will be lobbying for the laws to be softened and no group will do that more expertly than Iona. Indeed lobbying a small group such as Oireachtas members might be more efficient and effective for Iona and its supporters than the wider public in a social media age.

The signs were there that no wasn’t doing well. Yesterday all the trending on twitter was hashtags that supported repeal. How could the No campaign that had targeted social media to spend its money have let that happen? The row between different no groups as to who’d represent them in a tv debate and the ban by google on advertising all undermined the credibility of the No side. However it was the behaviour of some of their canvassers on doorsteps and tearing down Yes posters which upset people who were genuinely in the middle.

If this means that despite all the spending on social media and voter manipulation voters are rejecting the politics of spin and negativity we may have many reasons into the future to thank the electorate for their decision today.

There’s a lot of people who worked hard on the campaign. I’ll mention a few, Shane McAnally, and Doris Murphy who energised us all. Aislinn Wallace played a blinder. I know when you start to name drop that in a diverse campaign like this one, you don’t mention someone and you leave someone out. There would have been no campaign without them. In Wexford a lot of independent minded people turned out to canvas, many for the first time. Labour, Sinn Fein and People Before Profit all fought the good fight with one FG member and that was that.

50,000 reasons to be glad that we live in a democracy. That is the alpha and omega of politics.

Repeal with zeal!

So with less than a week left to polling day in the repeal referendum, where stands Wexford? I’ll out myself at the start as a committed Yes voter.  While that’ll give a complexion to where I’m coming from, I’d like to think it only colours my thinking but not what I’ll write.

The last week has really seen the campaign emerge into the media on a daily basis. About 2 weeks ago I feared that it might become conflated with the cervical cancer scandal and that it might become the catalyst around which the electorate might turn on an incompetent Department of Health and the track record of previous ministers there.  From canvassing in Wexford it’s clear that people are distinguishing between the two, the issue of cervical cancer hasn’t emerged on the doorstep.

Last week’s decision by Facebook and Google in relation to advertising hasn’t impacted either on the thinking of the electorate. Am I the only one who ignores ads on Youtube and skips to the programme? Possibly not!

What has struck a cord especially with young first time voters is that they may well come out in large numbers to vote. My own experience is that many young voters want to vote Yes and men, especially of my own age, need to have the matter explained and might be reluctant to vote on the day. Women have made their minds up long ago on the matter and I don’t think I’ve met any woman who is a don’t know.

Beyond that there is a curious geography about the canvas. People who live in houses that were built in the last 20 years tend to be Yes. The No message would be stronger in areas of Wexford that were built in the 1960’s. And surprisingly older established areas in Wexford built in the 50’s or earlier seem to be strongly Yes.  Irish of Eastern European origin may well oppose repeal in large numbers.

It’s clear that the urban area of Wexford will vote Yes. Rural areas may not be so clear cut. The No campaign only seems visible on Saturday afternoon in the Bull Ring. Aside from that, little has been seen of it so far around the town.

Has it been respectful? Canvassers on the Yes side are keen to talk to someone if they don’t know. If the person on the doorstep has made up their mind either way, then there’s no point in going further. They may tell you if they are a Yes. If they’ve made  their minds up it’s a case of move on to another doorstep to search out the elusive undecided voter.

Personally I’d say that the level of abuse is on a par with what I got in 1983 when I knocked doors in my own home area.  One notable incident in the last week happened while dropping my Labour leaflets in Castlebridge. A man with a strong Munster accent confronted me on the path in the estate and called me a murderer as he handed back my leaflet. The Labour party, according to him, was finished at the next election and he wouldn’t vote for me. I replied that I don’t want his vote as I won’t represent him and that he won’t call me that on a public street.

I haven’t been canvassed by the no side but the other night I met a woman with a Save the 8^th badge who asked me why I supported repeal. We engaged and she seemed more genuinely curious as to why I think the way so I explained to her my opposition since 1983. We said our pieces mutually with interest and both sides listened. And that was that, wished her well and we both moved off.

At the back of it all I can understand the Save the 8^th and Love Both position. It is clear, whether you like it or not. They are straight up with where they are coming from.  What I have a problem with is the increasing political view that you can say nothing and ignore the electorate as they consider a really important issue  That suggests lack of interest and courage.

There’s still a few days to go.  Attention deserves to shift to our 3 TD’s who’ve yet to make up their minds as to how they’ll vote. Ministers Michael D’arcy, Paul Kehoe and James Browne have yet to reveal how they intend to vote, presumably for fear of having to show leadership on the issue and to explain what they think to their supporters and voters. Cabinet ministers have access to significantly more information and position papers when legislation is being drafted and discussed in cabinet. The cabinet agreed to the legislation and the referendum. And yet there is a stony silence from the Government deputies. If the referendum is lost in Wexford, someone will have to take responsibility.

It is the least the electorate deserve.

Reeling in the years!

So there I was last week watching “Reeling in the years”. Reflecting on how Ireland used to be. Out of the corner of my eye I could see day glow vests of people fanning out around the doors in my estate. I wondered who they were. It didn’t take long to find out as within a minute the doorbell rang. I opened it to see a man and a woman on my doorstep dressed in day glow vests on a bright summer’s evening. “Good evening”, they said “We’re here from the pro life movement to talk to you about the 8^th Amendment”. The years were well and truly reeled in as I remembered back to 1983.

So my opening line to my visitors was that I believed the people had made a mistake in 1983 and that it was time for the 8^th amendment to be repealed.  When they asked me why I explained that it was the original intention of the 8^th Amendment to interfere with medicine and stop contraceptives like the IUD and test tube techniques for treating infertility. I pointed out that in 1983 Ireland’s population was smaller than it is now however the numbers of women accessing termination in the UK had dropped in real terms by 25% since 1983 pointing out that it was education and not legislation that really worked.

Why I opposed the 1983 amendment back in the day was because that it was not proposed to introduce abortion back then. Rather it was a defensive move because pro life supporters felt that the 1861 Act which outlawed abortion would be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The net effect of the amendment was to freeze the law and medical practice. It is heartless to oblige a woman who is pregnant with a foetus diagnosed with a fatal fetal abnormality to continue that pregnancy against her own wishes. It is wrong to oblige a women who is seriously ill to continue a pregnancy or as we had a few years ago, a woman kept on life support simply because she was pregnant. Doctors with their patients or next of kin are entitled to take decisions in the interest of the patient. As medical technology advances more of these situations will arise into the future. The 1983 amendment was designed to freeze for ever more what a doctor can or can’t do for his patient. It was also a cynical political stick which Charlie Haughey used to batter Garett Fitzgerald over the head with.  My recollection of the count day was Ray Burke TD sitting god like reading out tallies in a referendum that his party was officially neutral.

I pointed out to the 2 man and woman on the doorstep that I feared the referendum would be nasty and abusive and personalised.  The lady told me that she had a friend who had an abortion after 6 months and that she was affected by it.  I’ve no reason to think that’s not the case. However nobody is proposing a time limit of 6 months in Ireland. We cannot influence what other countries abortion laws are.

One of my visitors looked to the other and eventually told me that people won’t kill their own child but will ask someone else to do it.  He asked me if I had any children, I told him I’ve 5 and none of them would ask someone to kill children either. That part of the exchange speaks volumes about the ignorance that will be hawked from doorstep to doorstep around this town.  We haven’t seen the proposed wording which the constitutional citizen’s assembly asked for yet and already a group is on the march asking that we oppose something that has not been proposed.

If the exchange on my doorstep taught me anything it is that little has changed in the last 35 years on this topic. The same people that opposed divorce, marriage equality, access to contraception and gay rights are now back to the future to where it all started in 1983.

Next year we’re promised a referendum. Let’s wait and see the wording but there’s a strong chance I’ll be knocking doors again. Maybe at the end of the decade the referendum might feature in Reeling in the Years?

The day of the bastards.

Hands up who remembers John Major? Over twenty years ago he was being hounded by the Eurosceptic wing that Margaret Thatcher had bequeathed him.  He was overheard at a briefing referring to them as “Bastards”. The eurosceptics were exemplified by Norman Tebbitt whose famous reminder to anyone looking for work was to get on their bike.  Lots of Irish took that advice and came to Britain.  

Well the bastards are now in the driving seat and it's on your bike time again. Top of the list is David Cameron. So let’s look at how Ireland has changed since the bastards were undermining the then Tory leader.  There is a fiction that free movement of people and trade originated as a result of the Good Friday Agreement. That’s wrong.  So lets nail this myth that it was always easy to cross from North to South.

I’ve spent most of my life crossing the border, I spent 2 really happy years working for a cross border body during the Northern Troubles. I crossed the border practically everyday in that period.  Free movement across the border was hugely curtailed during the troubles. Before the troubles you stopped at each custom post and explained where you were going before a customs man decided whether or not he'd search the car.

During the troubles, northern custom posts were bombed by the IRA and then replaced with military checkpoints on main roads.  Smaller country roads had bridges blocked and closed where they crossed from North to South.  The suggestion that a common travel area existed simply meant that no passport was asked for. Despite it not being the law at the time to carry a driver’s license, if you were stopped at a military checkpoint you were always asked for your drivers license. And there were huge delays getting through checkpoints.  As you drove north from Dundalk there was a constant line of trucks at custom clearance.  There was a cottage industry of cafes feeding truck drivers while they waited for the paper work to be completed.
And then there was the Prevention of Terrorism Act, brought in after the Birmingham Pub bombs.  As a student I was always singled out to fill in the form when I arrived of a boat in Wales before I could continue onward.

Masstricht provided for free movement of goods and the removal of custom posts along the border.  That treaty came into effect in 1992. Britain is now opting out of that.  Doing business up north or over in Wales? Fill the flask, you’ll need a cuppa as you wait, the coffee shops are long closed. 

Smuggling was effectively a way of life for many along the border exploiting differences in prices north and south. A collapse in the value of sterling will attract shoppers north however shopping may be the least of our worries.  Everything from laundered diesel to rubbish, livestock to fire works have moved illicitly in the past over the frontier. Dubious characters are behind this.  Removing the economic border left them stumped.

What we should be concerned about into the future is the potential for people smuggling.  The Leave campaign says that free movement can be kept. The only border between the EU and the UK will run from Carlingford to Derry.  But when they say free movement, free movement for whom? Citizens of the Republic of Ireland? EU citizens? or all citizens?  Nobody has explained what that free movement means.  

Either side of the border you will find people keen to make money smuggling people to the UK.

We in Wexford remember only too well what that might involve.  Let’s hope I’m wrong 

So last night’s historic vote isn’t the overthrow of any establishment. It’s the return of the bastards. 

Just who's taking who for a ride?

Celebrating?  I’d hold off a while before I know what there is to celebrate.  The deal that Greeks voted on was withdrawn last week by the EU negotiators.  A Yes vote would have meant an immediate General Election and the financial insecurity of nobody to negotiate on behalf of Greece with the EU.  A No vote means that there is no money in the banks tomorrow nor the day after that and the black economy is taking off like a rocket.  Neither eventuality will bring in the money needed by the Greek government to run the country.  Simply the question is about the unsustainable nature of Greeks historic debt. 

Soon a No vote may likely also mean that the Greek Government will meet bills as they arise by issuing IOUs which will eventually become tradable and may form the basis of a new currency, possibly a revised drachma.

But here’s where the big problem may start.  Currencies are tradable against one another.  Greece is very different to Ireland as Greece has a sizeable internal economy with less international trade as a percentage of GDP.  It earns a lot of foreign revenue from tourism.  Any new currency will drop in value by the day.  This will drive inflation upwards and make the country uncompetitive.  Sunseekers can get their tan elsewhere if prices rise. Greece’s enormous debt to its EU partners can’t hop on board and high tail it out of town.  It’s attached to a creditor nations set of accounts and it must be accounted for as it affects the interest rate paid for government bonds to fund short term loans.

In other words if it is written off or down, who is going to compensate a creditor nation and how can that possibly be done?  And here’s the rub, while we’re in for about €500M all told, other nations are up to their necks in it.   

I’d be very nervous of what may happen to Greece.  Let’s be honest about it, would you live their life?  What we suffered during the slump was in the half penny place compared to Greece.  In the last few days the cute nod was been given to the Greeks by the IMF and Wolfgang Schlaube that made it easy to vote no.  Already the country can hardly afford medicine nor to allow more than €50 to be deducted daily from a bank, that’s if you can find a bank ATM that works. 

Perhaps the Germans have calculated that Greece may be let go from the Euro but kept in NATO and the EU?   Moreover the right wing nationalist party supporting Syriza backed the wrong horse on this referendum.  So Syriza may be left relying on Golden Dawn as they did in this week’s referendum to continue in office.

The Irish backdrop to this is the forthcoming General Election and the arrival of Syriza’s BFF Pearse Doherty and Paul Murphy into town to get in on the PR.  Try tell Pearse that Larkin, once talking about nationalism, said that you cannot eat a flag.

Sinn Fein and AAA’s logic is simple.  The Troika should go and take their money with them.  The magic money tree will provide.  But in Greece Syriza are happy to charge for water and tax those who own property and don’t plan to change that.  They also accept that wealthy people will simply shift cash by the click of a mouse to another jurisdiction so aren’t breaking their neck to tax the rich.   Some aren’t too keen to have this pointed out.  Slogans are easy and simple to understand, so too are celebrations.  How likely is it that the majority of Greeks got to read and understand even the executive summary of both documents that were before the people today?  But that’s democracy.

But reality is more complex.  The referendum was not about changing the figures, it was about getting the nation behind its strategy.  The Greeks now will table their new proposals and including them this time on the right attachment. We’re no nearer the light switch. Let’s keep the celebrations until we’re all out of the dark.

Wexford decides. It's Yes!

The word history is often over used.  However there is something different and special about today’s count on the Marriage Equality Referendum in St Joseph’s Centre Wexford.  It’s an old hall that was built by a local priest as a community hall at about the time of the visit of John F Kennedy to Wexford.

When Kennedy ran for election as US President he was anxious to dispel the notion that as a catholic he couldn’t be president for all the people.  In US politics there is the separation of state from church on all levels.  At the same time in Ireland the Catholic church used its influence when it needed to. 

Kennedy said “believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference”

While this might have proved attractive in the US, for any Irish politician to have repeated the same sentiments this side of the Atlantic at that time would have spelt the end of their career.

Kennedy’s ancestors came from a small village called Dunganstown. As I tallied boxes on the marriage referendum today from townlands within a stones throw of the old homestead, my mind couldn’t help but ask what would JFK think today of his descendants?

It was good to see former pupils from many years ago at the count, it can only be positive for local politics.  Few of the faces tallying were there a year ago at the local elections.  Indeed how ironic it is that Eamon Gilmore, who as Labour leader pinpointed this issue 3 years ago resigned exactly a year ago on this weekend following the reversal of the local elections of which I was one of the casualties.  There is the sense today of Wexford moving on from the last lost decade.

Many of Wexford’s villages and towns have voted strongly Yes.  There are interesting trends with a stronger No vote in the south of the county from Rosslare over to Kilmore Quay where the outcome is more balanced.  Riverchapel which is the stomping ground of Labour’s Robbie Ireton was 80 : 20 Yes. Elsewhere especially in Wexford Town where boxes from Scoil Mhuire tallied at about 60:40 in favour of the Yes while Kennedy Park, named after the late president was 70% Yes.  The official result won’t be available until later today but it’s clear from Wexford that people will separate their moral views on religion from their public tolerance of difference.  That can only be positive.  For those of us that canvased against the 8^th Amendment in 1983, Thank God we’ve lived to see this day!