Wexford boundaries put shape on the Local Election

At long last we have the boundaries for each district in Wexford for next year’s local elections. Normally local elections evolve into a mini general election where the people use the ballot box to send a message to the government. They did this when I was elected and they did it when I was beaten.

At first glance it may well look as though the pattern may repeat itself. However think forward and perhaps that’s not the way it may turn out. We will have a Presidential election later this year. It is clear that Gerard Craughwell will get enough support among independents for a tilt at the Arás. If he runs you can rest assured that SF will not let him off on his own.

We’ll have a Presidential election this autumn. Presidential Elections are allocated a 60 day campaign. So at the start of September, we’ll know who may be nominated, by Halloween, we’ll know the result.

During that period we’ll have a budget. Could it be defeated and can a general election be constitutionally called during a presidential election campaign? So the budget will pass and then the Finance and Social Welfare Acts will give effect to the budget changes. That will take until Christmas.

But once we enter the new year, all bets are off. Fianna Fail will see themselves out of the Confidence and Supply Deal and any issue could and will trigger an election. So presuming there will be an election in March next year, bear in mind how long it can take to form a government.

Easter next year will be later than usual. Once Easter is over we are into Local and European Elections. With new ministers barely in their new jobs, there’ll be little for the electorate to give any new government a kicking over by the time the new boundaries come into play on polling day next year.

Or at least that’s what Fine Gael councillors reckon. This will be a local election which will favour incumbents for many reasons. Local elections will be about local issues. Any outgoing councillor will of course have the ear of officials and will have an enormous advantage in that election. There may well be an election weariness by the time the local elections come around so turn out may well be much lower than average.

And when you look at the boundaries it further reinforces the notion that the status quo will prevail. The decision to ring fence Wexford as one ward makes sense. However introducing Clongeen into the district makes no sense. Including the name of Kilmore in the entire district sounds peculiarly quaint.  This ward will be most hotly contested. 5 outgoing councillors will be joined by one councillor moving from New Ross district and Paul Codd, the son of the late Pat Codd, Mr Taghmon.  Something has to give.

Wexford will have 7 seats. Social media discussion of that ward will assure you that all 14 candidates will win. I’ve yet to see that happen in any election.

Gorey district has been taken apart in this redraw. The village of Ballycanew is familiar to most people from Wexford who take the direct road to Gorey. You’d hardly get back into 5^th gear having driven through the village before you decelerate once more to get onto the motorway. Bizarrely Bally canew and its hinterland are now considered part of Enniscorthy. Gorey has dropped to 6 seats which is just one seat more than Kilmore ward has been allocated.

Enniscorthy will comprise 2 wards with one centred on the town but also a coastal ward at Kilmuckridge. New Ross has also lost a seat as well as some territory to Wexford. Taghmon has returned to its rightful place in Wexford District. But the real downside for Wexford ward is that the 7 councillors it elects won't have officials ring fenced to work for the town but the 6 elected in Gorey District will have engineers and a dedicated secretariat. Why? Because Wexford will be a ward while Gorey will be a district.

So that’s the territory and the context of the redraw. What I can’t do now is predict the issues in each ward that will elect our next council. Let’s hope it as election that debates ideas and local issues. 2014 was all about candidates pretending they could reduce property charges, rates, and abolish water charges while giving a better service.  A weary public bought that populism. There’s no doubt that the electorate may not wish to punish those who won using this line, however let’s hope that some of the new councillors will hold them to account.

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.

#Ibelieveher

Our daughters are on their way to Dublin as I write. They’re going to today’s demonstration in support of the complainant in the Belfast rape trial.  I’m delighted that they are going to show solidarity if only just tinged with a sense of regret that I can’t be there myself.

I like rugby and played the game a lot as a teenager. The position of out half is key to the game, controlling how a team can attack. 70 years ago my late father took a day excursion to Ravenhill to watch Ireland win the triple crown after a 49 year wait.  Central to that team was Jackie Kyle. Kyle was the same age then as the complainant in the Belfast rape trial is now.

In my own time there’s been Mike Gibson, Tony Ward, Ollie Campbell, Humphreys, O’Gara and now Sexton, not forgetting Wexford man Seamus Kelly. Kelly filled in for Kyle in much the same way as Jackson did for Sexton.  Tony Ward came the wrong side of the IRFU for having the temerity to pose topless for a tabloid paper. His talents were considered surplus to requirement by the blazers subsequently and he never recovered his place on the international team afterwards.

So where does that leave Jackson? On Wednesday after he was acquitted of the charges he said all he wanted was to return to the rugby pitch. However his attitude contrasts to that of the other 3 defendants who simply wanted to disappear.  An aggressive statement by his solicitor indicated his sense of anger at being even asked to account for the night in question. There’s a parody of South Dublin Neanderthal attitudes to women called rugby addict Ross O’Carroll Kelly. Not in the wildest dreams of Paul Howard could his fiction actually come close to what has been heard in Laganside Court House in the last 2 months.

Jackson has already indicated he wants to sue the BBC over claims breach of privacy. Yesterday he said he’s sue my colleague Senator Aodhán Ó’Riordáin arising from a tweet that Aodhán posted highlighting the middle class nature of accused after the verdict was delivered. With all those legal appearances in the diary one wonders where Mr Jackson will find the time to play the game he loves. Mr Jackson will be in and out court houses like a merry go round, except he may find that it’s easier to threaten action rather than face the roasting in either a courthouse or indeed the court of public opinion.

Threatening people with legal action after the details of your private life become public knowledge isn’t smart. It stinks. In fact the basis of Jackson’s defence was that he was a decent middle class boy. His co accused in fact said, he’d be the last person in the world to rape someone. I have to accept that because the jury did. Why when you rely on an argument in court for a defence do you threaten someone with legal action outside the court house when they draw attention to that argument?

On the field of play the out half takes split second decisions that can turn a game in your favour. I’ll leave it for readers to conclude how effective Mr Jackson is in that role off the field concerning this matter.

The entire case exposes a laddish culture of drink and divine right to act as you wish and leave the consequences to later and a whatsap group pow wow. I wonder what some of the distinguished players I mentioned above would think of that. I doubt if many would find much in common with the values of today. Kyle famously spent most of his life doing voluntary work as  a surgeon in Africa.

For me it’s a case that #Ibelieveher

Remembering the last flight of Aer Lingus 712

There’s something about anniversaries. You can’t get away from Cork band Frank and Walters all week. It’s 25 years since their hit “After All”. It’s got a second life thank to “The Young Offenders”. 

There’s another anniversary however. It’s 50 years today since the first air disaster I remember. It wasn’t just any air crash. It touched my life as I grew up close to Dublin Airport and many of our neighbours worked there or directly for Aer Lingus.

It was a Sunday lunchtime and I had been in the bad books. I’d been playing football and a wild shot had broken a bathroom window earlier. Much of the usual Sunday lunchtime banter was missing as a consequnce. As the RTE News ended at 2 pm the newsreader broke a story that an Aer Lingus Vickers Viscount en route from Cork to London was missing in the vicinity of Rosslare. My   father’s first words were “I   hope that doesn’t involve Barney O’Beirne”.

The O’Beirne’s lived about 400 metres away from us. Barney’s daughter and my sisters were in the same school. Sadly it did involve Barney.  He, his aircraft, his crew and passengers came down about 2 miles from Tuskar Rock with no survivors.

Captain O’Beirne didn’t accept the catastrophic malfunction of his aircraft easily. the last message from the aircraft was from the Co pilot who said the aircraft was hurtling towards earth at 12,000 feet. The plane entered a spin over Fethard On Sea. Captain O’Beirne and  First Officer Heffernan rescued the situation and the plane levelled off. However with parts falling of the aircraft they eventually lost the battle to stay airborne 10 minutes later at Rosslare with no radio contact to Shannon air traffic control.

Barney and his wife had a young son, David. When I progressed to secondary school, David was in the junior school and often we’d be on the same school bus as me getting on and off at the same stop.  I was too young to understand about the investigation into the crash.

Later in life when I married, my mother in law was in hospital for an operation in Cork. Sharing her room was the mother of Barney’s 22 year old co-pilot. My father in law actually saw the plane taking off on its final journey 30 minutes before it crashed.  The flight path into and out of Cork airport passes over their home.

So there are lots of connections between me and Flight 712. A work colleague of mine told me that as a small girl she watched the plane along with her grandmother as it flew along the South Wexford coast in its final minutes. Little was I to know when I moved to work in Wexford how something from the past can come back to meet you. That’s’ why I was there in Rosslare today. Good to shake hands and renew old links.

Let’s leave the issue for another day as to what caused the crash. There’s lots of different suggestions as to what happened on the day. After all what will remain is that 61 people died after a pilot and crew did their very best to protect their passengers on flight 712. 

All over the place when it comes to a Trump visit

Let’s start with a quote from 2017 after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the USA. Who said “I will have no truck with that. I have a track record on all of those matters and we will stand firmly by that, that’s our position.” Well the answer is the same person who today said the following when Dr Varadkar repeated an invite to the Donald to visit Ireland; “On the issue of the President of the United States coming to Ireland that in the first instance is a call for the Taoiseach and for the diplomatic services but again where America can bring something positive to bear and make a positive contribution to our process I think we should always be open to that,”

Give up? Wait for it, the answer is Mary Lou McDonald! Seems the Donald is now the man to shoe horn Mary Lou back into power in Stormont. So the end justifies the means when it comes to Sinn Fein. This will come at a cost. You can’t criticise a world leader in one breadth and in another tug his forelock to solve a local difficulty in Stormont.

SF have made strongly the point that they can’t agree a power sharing executive with the DUP as Arlene Foster will not support marriage equality in the north. However Donald Trump’s record on LGBT issues make the DUP sound like raving liberals by comparison, He has banned gays from serving in the US military, fails to accept LGBT month while 9 months ago 6 members of his own advisory committee on HIV/AIDS walked citing harm that Trumps policy was causing.

Another question, Which minister said to RTE 13 months ago;  ‘I wouldn’t [invite Trump]. I’m not sure what purpose it would serve.” ? Probably the same guy who turned up in Washington today congratulating Trump for adopting Ireland’s tax strategy and waffling on about auld decency of good manners to return an invite to visit one’s home.

That’s an easy one. It’s Dr Varadkar our Taoiseach. Dr Varadkar is a very considered person. He leaves nothing to chance so he can’t hide behind the fools pardon that SF supporters will no doubt excuse Mary Lou McDonald’s new found interest in the Donald.

There is a certain element in SF that are attracted to Trump in the same way as they respect Putin and the hard populism of other nationalists.  But Dr Varadkar hoping on to his coat tails? This will come unstuck, The prospect of a Trump visit will see protests on the street that will make the reception for Ronald Reagan look like a Bord Failte ad.

Two years ago there was a dry run when Michael Noonan greeted Trump in Shannon, it raised eyebrows.  Last year Enda Kenny’s skilful speech that subtly deconstructed Trump’s attitude to immigrants rightly received worldwide praise and went viral.  Who exactly is Dr Varadkar trying to impress with this invite?

Trump’s fellow populist travellers have contempt for Varadkar over Brexit and his support for the EU.  Like with Mary Lou, Varadkar’s invite to his BFF will come at a cost too.

Question is, who will pay for it?

Taking advantage of a good crisis.

So now that Storm Emma has done its worst, it’s time to count the cost. Usually when you hear about counting the cost you think of lives lost or those injured. You think of damage to homes or businesses.

Until now there was a presumption that if you’d no work it didn’t matter, your income wouldn’t be affected. I was contacted with a query in relation in the last 24 hours. Where do you stand if your employer requires you to work and you can’t get there? Can your salary be docked? 

Most employers shut down for a number of reasons. It can be health and safety in relation to the workplace, it could also be to facilitate their workers getting home safely. In some cases we’re hugely indebted to workers who turn out regardless as they belong to the emergency services but also there’ll be someone in Wexford’s Women’s Refuge, an AA breakdown man on call as well as a Caredoc available. Many go beyond the call of duty at times like this. It’s at times like this we have an understanding of what community means.

So what do you do when your employer requires you to work even though it’s unsafe to go to work? That was the question that was put to me yesterday. I hadn’t thought of it. I presumed an employer might see that it was not worth it to open up if there was no footfall. The overheads of opening but getting nothing at the till would dictate that you’d cut your loses. If it was unsafe for a worker to go in, then it is unsafe for a customer.

The Taoiseach Dr Varadkar says there is no legal obligation on employers to ensure staff are paid if they cannot get to work. Companies will lose significant revenue too, he adds.  Dr Varadkar isn’t quite right on this. The law says where the company is unable to open the premises at which you normally work due to inclement weather or for some other reason outside of the company’s control you will not be entitled to be paid.

However where the company decides that it is possible to open the premises but determines that for Health and Safety reasons or for some other reason that it is impractical, or not reasonable to open the premises then in such circumstances you will be paid.

So if the premises is unsafe then there is a requirement to pay the wage until the workplace is safe once more. In other words if you have a safe working environment then you don’t have an entitlement to pay. If on the other hand the premises is unsafe arising from bad weather they must pay your salary. So a post man or a delivery person for a take away or a door to door salesperson must be paid but a shop assistant does not. It’s got nothing to do with potential loses that a company might suffer.

I’d argue that any employer who valued their workers should pay regardless of what the law might say. It’d be a poor employer who laid little value on their workers in good times who would dock wages when weather got bad. Good will in the workplace takes time to build up but sometimes  can often disappear like snow of a ditch.

Climate change is a reality. It’s likely that red alerts may become part of the future working environment. You don’t hear anymore descriptions of extreme weather events as one in a hundred years. They’re here to stay. What we need is a strengthening of legislation to protect workers incomes into the future, regardless what Dr Varadkar thinks.