David Higgins

Today SIPTU, the countries largest union said that it was seeking a 3.5% pay rise for health service workers that they are owed after the 2008 benchmarking. They have threatened industrial action should the government refuse to bow down and kiss their feet!

James Larkin once said

“Comrades – We are living in momentous times.”

There isn’t a quote more appropriate to describe what we face in this country. €400 million leaks from this country every week and this is before €54 billion is spent on NAMA.

It’s clear from these figures that extra money has to be raised to fill that gap in either the form of increased taxation or cuts in public spending. The former has been ruled out by Brian when he said:

“Read my lips, No tax hikes”

So, cuts it is then.

The bulk of these will have to come from the public sector wages and pensions. They are in secure jobs vs. the near half a million unemployed from the private sector, they have secure pensions vs. a loss in the value of pensions for many private sector workers and they are paid significantly more that their public sector counterparts. The pension levy has reduced this wage gap however it still stands at around 10%, or in the case of lower paid workers there’s a difference of over 15%.

It is for these reasons that there has to be a reduction in public sector wages instead of a ridiculous 3.5% rise.

The country can’t afford it and even if we could it would be an insult to the thousands of private sector workers who are struggling through this crisis too.

SIPTU should wake up and smell the coffee. Their threat of industrial action would not only severely damage the economy, were it to be acted upon, but it would also put at risk the lives of thousands of patients in the health service who would fall victim to such action.

Today the ASTI teacher’s union said that its members would no longer attend out of hours parent teacher meetings. 6 of these are held each year in every school to cover pupils in all 6 school years. The union says it is in response to the recent education cuts.

So wait, in protest of cuts they cut something else???

I’m not going to make a huge deal about this because parent teacher meetings are a relatively insignificant part of second level education. It’s simply a chance to meet your child’s teachers in every subject once a year and get feedback first hand on their progress in the junior and leaving certificates. Personally it’s convenient for my parents to meet my teachers and I think it’s important that parents know who’s teaching their children.

However the underlying problem with this is the strength of the unions. They continue to flex their muscles in the run up to the budget, completely opposed to pay cuts and even seeking pay rises in the health service. Cuts need to happen and the unions will destroy this country if they’re allowed have their way.

This year the ASTI celebrates its 100th year in existence. A century of Service they say. Maybe it has been a service up to now but for how long?

Anne Devitt, Fine Gael councillor for Fingal County Council was today revealed as having not paid €50,000 in tax. She was elected to the council from the Swords LEA in the June elections on the last count.

This controversy follows her appearance at the Mahon Tribunal in 2006 where she defended the €32,500 she received from property developers in the area.

Only tax evaders above €30k have their names published and Cllr. Devitt’s crime was as high to have her listed. It’s deplorable that this councillor is a member of Fine Gael and it is a tarnish on our image of being the party of no corruption. We still retain this title in comparison to Fianna Fáil but that is not enough.

Fine Gael will sooner or later become the largest party in Ireland and power cannot go to our heads like it has to Fianna Fáil. We must continue to be a clean party that does not allow anyone who evades tax in the party and we must set an example to other parties.

That is why I’m calling for the immediate dismissal of Cllr. Anne Devitt from the Fine Gael party.

The two most prominent political polls in Ireland are the Irish Times/TNS MRBI polls and the RedC/Sunday Business Post Poll. Both are always cited as being proof of one political parties support or they are dismissed as a “snapshot in time” by the government. In some respects both sides are right however it’s clear after the most recent polls from these outlets that either one is wrong or they’re both wrong!

One says Fianna Fáil are on 17% the other says 24% and both polls were released within a week of each other.

Both will claim that they are representative of all 43 constituencies however RedC’s poll of FF on 24% leads me to believe that they just got lazy and decided to hold the poll in Offaly.

To take an average of these polls you’ll find FF on 21%. Also taking the average Green Party vote gives you 4%. This is 25% still in support of government parties yet only 15% still claim to support the government.

Are 1 in 10 of irish voters retarded?

YES!

Fine Gael party leader Enda Kenny today made it clear that an overall FG majority was not to be ruled out. The comments were made at the party’s annual think-in in Cavan. Fine Gael have never had an overall majority and they have always relied on forming a co-alition with Labour.

While the party is set to become the largest party in Ireland, surpassing Fianna Fáil’s number of Dáil seats for the first time it’d be a miracle to get more than 83 seats in the 166 seater Dáil. Fine Gael currently have 51 seats.

Fine Gael will get its largest number of seats ever, and Fianna Fáil its lowest. Under normal circumstances this statement would imply a FG majority however there is one group of politicians that will see the largest rise in support in the next general election: the left.

Labour, People Before Profit, The Socialist Party and Sinn Féin will all be out in force next election and they’re all due to take Dáil seats. Labour could get around 30 seats, up from 20, PBP will get at least one seat, maybe 2. The socialist party should get two seats, and Sinn Féin is looking to get 7-10 seats, up from 4. Altogether left-wing parties will get around 40+ seats in the next Dáil based on current polls.

However should Fine Gael actually get over 83 seats then this must go hand in hand with a Labour or Sinn Féin increase. This would probably put the left vote anywhere up to 50 seats.

Independents could get up to 10 seats however a more realistic approach says they’ll get around 5.

So let’s say that Fine Gael get a safe 85 seats in the next election. Add that to the 55 seats mentioned above and you have 140 of the seats filled. Only 26 seats left for Fianna Fáil?

On 17% of the vote FF statistically have 28 seats however it’s certain that they’ll get more. Fianna Fáil is the party of power and it won’t be giving up that title too easily. They always get more seats than their % vote suggests. If we look at the 2002 general election we see that FF got 41% of the vote. Multiply this by 1.66 (dail seats equation) and you get roughly 69 seats. However in 2002 Fianna Fáil got 81 seats!

So, it’s fair to say that unless there is another erosion in the seemingly endless ‘core’ FF vote then we won’t see them on less than 35 seats or so.

At present there is scope for a FG minority government however who would support them? PBP, socialists and Sinn Féin are all radicals so that’s 10 votes immediately out of consideration. This only leaves independents and many of them would come under serious fire for supporting more cuts that FG will have to make in government. This is unworkable for them even if there would be a financial benefit for his or her constituency (The Jackie Healey-Rae method).

So until such time as support is there for Fine Gael, themselves and Labour better get used to each other and maybe try and find consensus on issues such as banking.

One upside of the presumed co-alition is that it will be the first co-alition to exceed 100 seats. This is well above the 83 requirement and it will, in 5 consecutive years set another record.

Fine Gael’s second term in a row

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of the Irish haters. I consider Irish to be an integral part of our heritage and I really believe it has a future in Irish society. However in order to achieve this bi-lingual society we need to teach a modern and relevant course.

Already into my first week of 5th year I’ve been astounded at the irrelevance of everything I’ve done so far in Irish. Our first piece of work was the poem “Jack”. The poem is set in the west of Ireland and it describes a farmer’s son who is described as a “strapping young lad” (This is, of course a translation).

The first problem with the Irish course is the poetry section. I believe that poetry is best left to English class, firstly because Irish poetry is inferior to English language poetry and crucially because I believe poetry is not a constructive device in learning a second language.

A fair amount of the time in class has been spent outlining the historic setting of the poem and the emotions involved. How has this anything to do with learning the language??? Because of this I feel like I’m in a History lesson about the famine times and the west of Ireland. History of Irish is a section of the leaving cert course. I accept that these are important topics however they have no place in what is supposed to be a language class.

I also have a problem with the words used such as “strapping young lad”. When am I ever going to use this phrase in either English or Irish? Other words like nostalgic came up too and again I don’t see the reason to learn these words.

The only time in life I see myself using Irish is in politics. Should I manage to make it to be a TD I’ll still make up the majority of Oireachtas members who can’t speak Irish fluently. George Lee, during his recent election campaign commented on the extent of his Irish abilities: “Níl much Gaeilge agam”. Also even if I do become fluent in Irish I will never use the phrase “strapping young lad” in a speech!

The Irish course is too culturally focused and it has abandoned the core objectives of any language: speaking. I welcome the recent decision to increase the % of marks going towards your oral exam however from what I hear even the questions in the oral are unusual and removed from an everyday normal conversation.

If Irish is to become an attractive subject for students it needs to focus on teaching students the basic grammer of the language and it needs to focus on teaching relevant words used in modern life. Until this happens, Irish for me anyway, will remain a boring and irrelevant subject.

The High Court is to hear the case of a Co Tipperary farmer who is seeking to block the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, due to be held on October 2nd.

John Gerard Burke claims the Lisbon vote of the 12 June 2008 should be declared as passed and that the proposed second vote be declared an act in breach of the constitution.

It’s clear that some people don’t see the difference between Lisbon 1 and Lisbon 2.

We have legal guarantees now. They’ve secured our commissioner, clarified our positions on abortion and neutrality and it’s made it clear that Lisbon has no influence on our tax laws.

I can understand that the text of the treaty is not altered however the guarantees will be considered under any further legal interpretation of the treaty and so we find ourselves with a very different referendum than the last time.

The economic landscape has also changed fundamentally and it’s clear that we need Lisbon to retain favourability for Foreign Direct Investment and to remain eligible for economic support by the EU.

Lisbon 2 is hugely different to Lisbon 1 so I think this case will be wrapped up fairly quickly.