What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander

If anything has been used as symbol of the slump it is the food bank.  It conveys an image of the great depression, of charities feeding those abandoned by the system.    It is perceived as symbol of failure and implies the 21^st century version of the poor house.  The growing number will without doubt be thrown in political debate as an example of how society has failed to provide often by those on the left to suggest lack of concern that charities are providing for people’s needs. 

Dublin MEP Nessa Childers (who was on 2 occasions of this parish) sees food banks as a product of austerity.  It’s often hard to resist the lure of a good line so let’s park the spin and let’s look at not just why a food bank is a good idea now, but necessary into the future. 

What determines the price of food?  Well it’s the cost of raw material, production its distribution and the profit margin.  If the price is less than the value that the customer expects to pay then sales follow.

But that makes a huge number of assumptions. One is that all the raw material ends up as a product on the shelf.  It presumes there is a consistent market led demand for the product and it also ignores the CO2 emissions and the cost of disposing or rendering of food that is processed but doesn’t sell.  All of that adds to the cost of production. 

During the week I caught up with a former college colleague who is involved with the Bia Food Bank.  He is full of praise for the support from Joan Burton that his venture has got.   He instances one meat producer who gives a ton of pork free every month to Bia Food Bank. They send the food on to charities that use the food to prepare meals on wheels around the country.  The gain for the company is that they do not have to pay for either rendering or incineration of the food or handling of the food once they donate it.  This in turn reduces costs to the meat processors.  The plus for the charities is that volunteers prepare free food that is distributed to elderly, homeless, and those in poverty. 

That is a good use of surplus food. Whereas just 1% of produced food on the supermarket shelf is banked because of the best before date, 15% of food in the production process never reaches any market.

During the slump consumption can be reduced and surpluses less however in a consumption led boom, food surpluses increase.  The cost that a consumer pays for an item includes the cost incurred dealing with the surplus food.  Any company that deals with this food surplus effectively reduces a cost and this impacts on the bottom line. 

However when consumption increases in a boom, so too does the volume of food unused in the production which is often disposed of.  Banking is an ethical way of dealing with produced food.  Is it moral at a time when CO2 emissions from agriculture are increasing that we should allow food to go unconsumed?  Is there not an obligation, especially when it comes to meat, that as much of the slaughtered animal be processed and that less animals should be farmed or slaughtered? Is it not possible by eliminating costs of dealing with surplus production that the cost of food be reduced for all consumers?

It is questions like these that don’t fit into an anti-austerity analysis.  Into the future these questions challenge those of us on the left to come up with an economically and environmentally sustainable   future proofing analysis.

The Troika is here

You spend a long time waiting for one and then 3 comes along is a usual jibe in Dublin to bus drivers.  You can now add new political parties to that.  After the establishment of Renua Ireland and the Alliance of Independents, we now have the Social Democrats. 

Their establishment is the latest attempt by Independent TD’s to prize away support from the Independent block of votes as you get closer to the General Election.  The troika of founding TD’s Stephen Donnelly, Roisin Shortall and Catherine Murphy are able people with a good track record. 

A well managed presentation built around the name social democrats dominated headlines. It’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into the initial launch.   While the aspirations need to be backed up with policies, there is little that would separate Social Democrats from most Labour members or voters.  Many Fine Gael people claim a social democratic allegiance as they look to the Just Society of Declan Costello and Garret Fitzgerald.  Some Fianna Fail people see themselves as social democratic too.  So nobody has ownership of the term social democrat.

The possible base is middle class, home owners, who are employed.  Such voters might be normally supportive of Labour and in many cases are public servants.  But when the new party says its core value is to have an efficient and accessible public service, that may just set off a bell or two in the minds of some public servants, who’ve weathered a storm in the last 7 years as to what exactly the social democrats mean by that. 

Stephen Donnelly was on radio later talking about social democracy.  As he said himself he’s not a political scientist.  That’s true, in fact Stephen worked in the World Bank.  The term Social Democrat still has a ring of the Gang of 4 in the 1980’s who split from Labour in the UK and guaranteed Thatcher whooping majorities to bring about the deregulated economy that did so much damage in later years.   Much of the globalisation agenda was in fact championed by the World Bank at this time, although to be fair to Stephen, it was quite some time before he started work there.

Of course believing in social democracy and being a social democrat are not mutually inclusive.  The concept of social democracy is about social control over the money flow, investing in social infrastructure, organisation of the economy around the needs of communities using Keynesian economics.  I didn’t see as much of what I believe Social democracy to be as I expected.

 What Social Democrats in fact highlight are possible solutions for those in difficulty with their mortgage and the need for an enterprise culture.  Yes they’re close to Labour when it comes to children under 6, tackling the housing crisis which Alan Kelly is now targeting extra money, transparency in decision making and a lot more.

But let’s wait and see the policies they roll out to attain the objectives that are core to the party. Today it was just broad strokes.  The party has a job to organise candidates, policy and a base.  The party has to decide who’ll lead in what areas.  A good start but where will it lead?    

The right to union recognition

There’s often a simplistic view of an industrial dispute.  There is a clear winner and clear loser, either Management or the workforce claim victory. But there is sometimes another outcome. There are occasions when ultimately nobody wins.  Often when that happens personal relationships are damaged and in a small workforce, that means that morale can be low for a very long time.  That can damage the workplace long into the future.

That’s what concerns me about the dispute in FDYS in Wexford.  In Wexford Town it provides crèche facilities and cares for young children.  For reasons best known to the board they are refusing to negotiate with their workers as they have joined the trade union SIPTU.

That’s despite the reality that collective bargaining will be law and workers will have the right to be represented by a union.  That’s what is so annoying about the dispute, it’s unnecessary.  My fear is for the organisation and the really important and good work it does in Wexford.  Today on a wet Saturday in the Bull Ring, FDYS workers took their case to the streets where they asked shoppers to sign a petition of support.  Despite the bad weather, they got a very favourable response.  One worker told me that she was 20 years in FDYS.  As another said to me, if there are problems about recognition or adhering to agreements, let’s talk about it, we’re reasonable people and we know FDYS can be reasonable too.

With a track record like that, this dispute can be resolved more quickly than many others.  Why wait any longer to do what will have to be done now?

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.

How many independents does it take to form a government?

No better time to discuss the role of independents in Wexford politics.  Tonight Wexford elected its first independent and rural based Mayor, Ger Carthy.  While later on the local independent TD, Mick Wallace was centre stage in a documentary about the role of independents in Irish politics.

Ballot papers in the US provide a space for a voter to write in the name of any other candidate.  Being an independent is easy.  As society becomes more complex and issues more interrelated, against a backdrop of 24 hour media, the simplistic notion of a single issue independent unfettered by political history sounds really attractive to the electorate.

In the last local election there were more non party candidates in Wexford than ever before but the number of independent councillors in the district is still the same as after the 2004 election. Independents perform extremely well in opinion polls.  But what does an independent candidate really stand for and is there a presumption on the part of electorate that they represent a type of politics that in practise independents don’t preach?  Last year one successful independent candidate in Wexford famously spelt the word "independent" wrong on his posters.  Presumably he hadn't spent much time thinking about the label! 

If a political party was to behave in that way, they’d be mince meat.  But an independent is never burdened by the need for consistency from a shifting electorate.  Some in small left wing parties like to represent themselves as independents.  Interestingly in opinion polls, their actual party labels score poorly.  In the recent Carlow Kilkenny bye election the Anti Austerity Alliance and Socialist Workers Party together won about the same number of 1^st preferences as Labour but transferred poorly and were eliminated early.

Implicit in Mayor Carthy’s speech is the suggestion that he will run in the General Election.  He said he proposed to be an active Mayor who will be calling to the doors of the district.  That’s more than a heavy hint with a General Election in the offing.  All politics is local but when you compare his set of priorities to those of Mick Wallace, 2 significant politicians couldn’t be further apart. 

Wallace’s publicity machine is relentless.  No need for clinics for the bankrupt developer who will pay off the taxman over the next 7 decades he spends in politics.  Mick rarely attends meetings in Wexford regarding local issues.  Most Wexford people are perplexed that he prefers the national limelight to Wexford.  Mick will hold his seat in the General Election next year, but will he still have 13,000 votes? I’m not so sure.

Let’s not confuse small left wing parties with Independents.  And here’s why. Because as the politics of austerity is consigned to the past when the economy grows, the small parties need to find new issues to campaign on.  I’ve listened to one local PBP councillor being introduced on local radio as an independent.  For a party that often protests, she was mute on this occasion.  Trotsky, however, would not have been pleased.  Small parties are not independents.  They resemble businesses that trade using different shelf companies.  Many small parties are clearly of  the  left, others like DDI or Renua are not.  But at least they can be placed on the political spectrum.

In reality most of Wexford’s Independent councillors are of the Fianna Fail gene pool.  They have little in common with Wallace or indeed Carthy whose father Leo was a long time independent councillor for almost 50 years. But for the independents of the Fianna Fail gene pool who are often rural based, the potholes, the footpaths, the road widening will be local issues for ever and a day.  Finding their niche on the right or left might be a tricky assignment as their political GPS tends to wander.

Where do independents stand on real issues when stripped down of the populism? Well your guess is as good as mine. During the Marriage Equality Referendum, no Wexford Independents were visible on the campaign. But what about the Repeal of the 8^th Amendment? Creating conditions for economic growth and employment?  Expanding education? Reforming the Health Service to deliver a better service? Europe? Because that is ultimately what impacts on ordinary peoples lives. Political parties, love them or hate them at least have joined up thinking in policy development. It is these differences that fuel political debate.

Where will whatever independents are elected in 2016 stand on these issues in 2021?  Let’s wait and see on this one.

Time for change!

Do you remember the famous expression; “We’ve got to get more from less?” The hard thing about managing on less is that it forces choices on everyone. The logic of the more from less credo is about making a little go a really long way, indeed much further than you’d have thought it could go in normal times.

Those were not normal times.  One of the motions that was passed at Wexford Borough Council concerned home adaption grants.  Effectively the list couldn’t progress as the money had been used up unless there was a real life or death case.

It was grist to the political mill and some councillors and local election candidates highlighted the lack of money although rarely pointed out why there was no money and of course didn’t point out where the replacement funds could be sourced.  Any proposed tax increase was fought tooth and nail.

Now of course that the home adaptation grants are being properly funded by Labour’s Alan Kelly, there’s not a word out of those who made the loud protests on behalf of the most vulnerable.  The good news for those that need their houses altered to help them cope with their disability is that there’s over €50M available for them and of that Wexford gets €1.5M.

It can only be good and while it can never make good any disability it makes homes more liveable in.   Because when councillors said that spending less on home adaptions made disabled more dependent on family, friends and state services, they were right and nobody denied that.  Now that more cash is being targeted early on in the recovery, maybe, just maybe some of councillors that complained a few years might just say to Alan Kelly and Brendan Howlin well done on finding the resources for this.

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!