Gavan Reilly

The story just trundles on. AC/DC played Punchestown last night – in a gig that seems to have been sold out since Jesus was knee-high to a grasshopper – and somehow MCD manage to cock up the bus situation again.

Peter blogs over on Culch.ie:

The problem? It baffles me how it existed. I don’t know how it took a bus almost 4 hours to get ***near*** Punchestown. I then walked ran approximately 3 kilometres along with so many others who had missed the entire support acts [plural], afraid we would miss ACDC as well. So at least I got to see ACDC you say….? Yes that still remains. And always will. Never mind the 20 minutes Q to get a pint of beer.

Whatever about the 20-minute queue – I missed almost the entire Prodigy hour-long set at Slane in the queue – it’s good to see that MCD are keeping up traditions by learning from none of their mistakes. Thank Christ I’m not going to Oxegen.

Edit: Adding a link to the Boards.ie thread on the subject. Hasn’t quite reached the gargantual proportion of the Slane thread but that’s not to say it still won’t…

Edit 2: Ian Healy also has his two cents.

First of all, let none of what I say take away from the fact that Oasis were simply awesome, and are still effortlessly brilliant at the top of their game. So musically, Slane was fine.

I had never been to Slane before, a shameful fact for a concert-going Meathman, and despite having had tickets to see Oasis at four various intervals before – Lansdowne Roads, Witnnesses, etc – and only making it to one of those gigs, an epic at The Point in December 2005, when the tickets came up this time I simply had to go. An open air gig with 80,000 other people, seeing perhaps my favourite band of all time… what could go wrong?

Organisationally, Slane 2009 was an absolute shambles.

That’s what I said at 3am, and I don’t feel much better now, even after getting about 10 hours of sleep.

If you’ve ever been to open-air gigs in Marlay Park or the Phoenix Park, or (as I’m told) at Oxegen, you’ll be familiar with the general modus operandi of Dublin Bus. They park all their vehicles in one field, which is clearly signposted and displayed on the way out of the venue. If you want one of said buses, you walk into the field, buy a ticket if you need to, and go to the nearest available bus. Once this bus is full, it drives away, and thus the volume of bus traffic on the roads is economised as much as possible.

Now Slane, I should concede, isn’t in the middle of a larger urban area, and so it doesn’t have a vast array of public transport that you can take there anyway. It’s a rural setting, with rural roads prepared only for everyday rural traffic. Country roads aren’t meant to carry 80,000 people but that’s not Slane’s fault and they shouldn’t be blamed for it.

Where Slane and MCD need to take blame, though, is for not making the best of the bad hand the setting deals them. Instead of the tried-and-tested Dublin Bus formula mentioned above – which, incidentally, are all venues or festivals operated by MCD, so they can’t claim not to have any organisational experience or capability – what happens in Slane is sheer amateurism. Buses dropping people mid-road on the way down is acceptable; with the human traffic and the width of the roads it is simply impractical to do any better. But on the way out, instead of the usual formula, buses – and I don’t blame Dublin Bus or Bus Éireann here, I blame MCD and the Gardaí – are simply parked on the sides of the same narrow road, and set off on the road back to Dublin when full.

The problem here, of course, and the problem Ciara and I fell into, is that because we made a point of walking quickly as soon as the gig finished, and getting into one of the first Bus Éireann vehicles – a bus we were shepherded into by the staff on duty, we ended up trapped behind other parked buses further, hemmed in by human traffic, and sardined in with nowhere to go. Instead of sending us further down the road so as to keep the road as empty as possible, the organisers made a bad situation worse. Why not rent a road and have all the buses sitting in it, keeping the road as empty as possible? It wouldn’t be difficult, expensive or resource-heavy. Send the Bus Éireann travellers one way, the Dublin Bus users in another, and keep the road empty of all traffic except for the filled-up buses. Don’t put us all in one direction and then handicap those of us who get out early by making us the last ones to hit the open road. The music finished just before 11; after the long walk (again, not the venue’s fault) back to the bus, we boarded our vehicle at 11.40pm and the engine revved up only five minutes later. Great, we thought, we might be back in Dublin before 1.

Sadly, inevitably, we ended up moving about 500m within the first two hours, another 2km in the following, and only hit the M2 back to Dublin at about 3. We arrived on Bachelor’s Walk at 4.05pm, nearly four and a half hours after we boarded, on a bus largely desperate to find a toilet and universally hungry, pissed off that they now couldn’t get a taxi or Nitelink home (4am is taxi blackout territory; it’s when everyone’s getting home from nightclubs), and wondering if they’d ever bother going to Slane again. Walking home, we made it in the door at 4.50am, six hours after the music had finished. This would be acceptable if we’d lived somewhere rural and had to accept a long trudge home, but not when we live in Dublin City Centre with the best public transport coverage anywhere in the country.

Just in case you think I managed to get particularly unlucky, or am turning crackpot at my Bus Éireann cabin fever, do a Twitter Search for “Slane bus”.

And another thing – I understand that without limits, people – and especially Irish people – go a little mad with their alcohol. But when you’re dealing with 80,000 people and you only have three bars, going beyond the usual four-pints-per-person rule and only giving each person two drinks at a time, and causing such a backlog that people end up queueing to get into a queue for drinks, is bad management.

Overall, Slane isn’t a bad musical venue. It’s not a brilliant one, but it’s forged itself a tradition and set a new standard for open-air concerts in Ireland in the 25 years since its first gig. There’s only been three gigs there in the last six summers, though, and one has to wonder whether it’s either that Slane have gotten out of practice, or whether Ireland has just gotten used to better treatment at its concerts. I can’t help thinking, though, that Slane would be a much better gig if there were 20,000 fewer people at it. Causing people to double up in queues for drinks, hindering the flow of human traffic pretty much everywhere in the venue, is simply bad practice. Not having any system organised for buses, though, is just plain stupidity.

Oasis were brilliant, but if another gig comes up at Slane and I can’t be sure that I’ll get home before it turns bright again, or if I have to spend four and a half hours on a bus with no toilet and no food, and end up on Twitter in bed at 5am like I did below, I might vote with my feet and spend €85 on a ticket for something else. And it might just be me, but with online petitions springing up today complaining about the length of queues and everything else, I might not be the only one.

Wow, a post I’ve had sitting in my Drafts folder since late December, and an argument that I’m now finding the right time to articulate as best I’d like to.

It seems that the more we woke up from our election hangover over the last ten days, and analysed to death what the results might mean if they were to trigger a general election (and with a Dáil majority of six, why the Government would ask the country to kick it out would be beyond me), and the Sunday Tribune interestingly, but ultimately academically, wonders just how many seats Fianna Fáil would have lost if it had been a general election. All of a sudden, the opposition parties are asked not to consider, but to rule out, the prospect of coalition with Fianna Fáil.

[Edit, 11.44am: I’ve just uploaded a spreadsheet with the hypothetical results as outlined by the Tribune last Sunday. Click here to download – it’s an Excel 2003 file inside a zip folder.]

In all honestly, it’s a fallacy to claim that the Irish Civil War ended in 1923. The two main political parties that arose from the great conflict over the Anglo-Irish Treaty (as an aside, it’s odd how the words ‘Anglo-Irish’ so consistent stirs up such vitriol in the Irish public…) still thrive; Fianna Fáil, founded on the basis of opposition to Ireland’s wilful accession to the Commonwealth, only recently postponed plans to move into Northern Ireland or merge with the SDLP, while Fine Gael, the party that held together in support of Michael Collins as he took on the imperial and negotiative might of the British, rides the wave of public sympathy like never before. But one has to wonder, aside from the merit of their continuing sparring, whether there was even much point to their falling-out in the first place. It’s universally acknowledged that, fully aware Britain would not concede full republic status to Ireland, de Valera pawned Michael Collins off with the task instead, thus abdicating responsibility for the inevitable failure. Surely, then, such a problem could easily have been forseen? Either Ireland would have to take the first step towards independence or get nothing at all. Was there even much basis to get all hot-and-bothered in the first place about the fact Ireland didn’t score the impossible victory it craved? The Civil War was simply an inevitable one: neither side would ever have been happy. In fact, to this day, neither has been. Even Dev’s opinion changed over time: he later regretted the opposition to the Treaty in the first place, the very reason he had founded the Fianna Fáil party. It is a cruel irony that 86 years after the end of the Civil War, Britain’s best-case-scenario – that of a cruelly divided Irish state too busy bickering within itself to achieve real progress – lives on, in spite of a national identity that too often defines itself as being Anything But Britain.

There is a great democratic argument for a Grand Coalition, and that’s without surmising that Ireland might soon find itself just as Germany did in 2005 – with no obvious power bloc and the inevitable need for the two main parties to get over their differences in order to govern. In the last General Election, 68.8% of voters chose either of the two main parties. That’s an overwhelming majority ably described as “most people”. The time before, it was 65% – again, a safe majority. Yet, “most people” didn’t vote for Fianna Fáil in 2007 – just 41.6% of people chose to do so. Similarly, 69.1% of people chose not to give their first preference to a Fine Gael candidate. In fact, since their collective existence, there has never been an Irish general election where the parties didn’t collectively accrue at least 65% of the vote, while neither party has ever broken through the 50% barrier to claim an absolute majority of the will of the people.

Thus, these two parties cannot individually claim to have ever represented Ireland’s true will – but a Grand Coalition can, and always could. If the notion of democracy is that the people are ruled according to their will, what could be more democratic than fixing a Government that would never have enjoyed less than 65% of the electorate’s mandate?

Furthermore, let’s take a step backward and just examine Ireland’s political landscape for a moment. Are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael really all that incompatable? Are they even any different at all? What are their differing policies? Fianna Fáil’s main policy seems to be ‘We endorse any Government involving Fianna Fáil”. Fine Gael’s is ‘We endorse any Government that doesn’t involve Fianna Fáil.’ Since the parties stopped confronting their only real differences – the aforementioned Civil War – on a daily basis, their only difference has been internal culture, and the differing degrees to which the internal turf wars end up with blood being spilt. Say what you like about Fianna Fáil’s notoriously brutal conventions and the internal schism between Haughey and Colley, but you don’t hear about their parliamentary meetings ending in walkouts and blazing rows; whereas Fine Gael’s… well… The end point is that there’s no reason for the parties not to get along – they have no ideological bases from which to join, they occupy the same one. Both are centrist, right-leaning, neo-liberal parties. All they argue about is administration – use this system here, cut those quangoes there. Why not get them into a room to define a programme for Government? A Tallaght Accord for the new millennium?

It’s a sad state of affairs that in that most noble of bloodsports, politics, Ireland can’t claim to have a truly functioning democracy. Every few years we bounce along to the ballots, enthused by plans of great legacy or real social change, and end up replacing one centre-right, introverted party with another, only noticing some real change when Labour aren’t tagging along as the junior partners. Let’s get a Grand Coalition going, then let’s make Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael realise that there are no differences between them; that there is no reason why they shouldn’t shack up and become the single party they were always meant to be. God willing, they’d get it together, and then we might experience something akin to the birth of the PDs, but three- or four-fold: the Grand Fragmentation into a few different blocs, all of whom share an actual political opinion or ideology. We might finally rescue ourselves and have a political scene that uses the same colours, and opinions, and ideals, and debates as everyone else. The chance to elect a Socialist, a Liberal, or a Conservative government, and experience the unique joys and pains of each.

But no. On we trundle, periodically giving Tweedledum a time-out while Tweedledee gets a run off the subs bench, hoping to impress the bosses and win a starting spot for the next match, only to be told that we’re not picking a Government on form, but rather by moderate rotation. Maybe thinking of politics as Ireland’s favourite bloodsport isn’t all that far removed; but maybe we ought to be investigating ourselves for match-fixing on a gigantic scale.

Maybe things might change. Maybe when we next bounce along to the polls, being flooded with promises of how we’re going to ride the next economic wave in a more socially responsible way, we’ll return a combination of TDs that mean a grand coalition is the only way a government can survive. If Fine Gael’s group in the European Parliament is willing to convalesce with the group Fianna Fáil are trying to get into, why can’t they do the same domestically? Maybe next time things might change.

Maybe, just maybe.

Yeah, I know, I’m actually blogging! Well, now that I can no longer describe myself as a student (a habit I’m going to find it quite difficult to get out of, I fear) and have to label myself as a “Sports Press Officer” – I’ll explain some other time – I’m going to probably have a little bit more time on my hands. I really can’t believe my five years of UCDness are over, but that’s for another day. Also contributing to my general time-having is the fact that we’ve moved house and now live on Upper Leeson St meaning that travelling is a much less cumbersome exercise, particularly when you can walk to most places.

On that theme, last Wednesday new housemate Mulley organised a bloggers’ tour of Leinster House with the Green Party. It had been ten years since I was inside that place (being classmates with ministerial offspring gets you fairly cool CSPE tours, folks) but since my political enlightenment of sorts, it was the first time to really take in the nature of the place. Ciaran Cuffe, our host, was an utter gent, extending the tour to the party’s offices inside Leinster House and to the Dáil Bar where he was more than happy to have proper chats with anyone who wanted them. Thus, myself and Brennan got a few minutes to have a reasonably in-depth chat with him about life as a TD, the challenges of representing an area with disparate social circumstances, and generally about the function – and more pressingly, the functionability – of the legislature itself.

Here I’ll pause for a quick politics lesson for those who might not be so interested. In the classical breakdown of Government, there are three branches of power: the executive (the panel of Ministers/Secretaries – in Irish terms, the Cabinet), who are charged with overseeing operations and issuing orders; the judicial (the courts system) who rule on the validity of laws and punish those who breach them; and finally the legislature (the Oireachtas), whose job it is to actually make those laws.

Last week on The Late Late Show, Pat Kenny decided to warm up for his new Questions-and-Answers-replacing political debate show by hosting a discussion on parliamentary reform (you can watch it here – skip to 1:16.45). Fintan O’Toole argued for the wholescale reconstruction of most of the bodies, and while people can always choose which parts to agree with and which to ignore, the one part that resonated with me was O’Toole’s assertion that in Ireland, we simply don’t have a functioning government as it’s described in the three-branches approach. The judiciary and executive both work – obviously their merit or competence is a matter of personal opinion) – but the legislative branch simply fails to function. In Ireland, the executive introduce a Bill, it is never debated with any substantive result, and the Government will always get what it wants and have the Bill passed. There is no debate; there is no constructive process leading to a concrete suggestion. The legislature don’t even, as a rule, introduce legislation: the executive comes up with something and the legislature rubberstamp it.

So what do you do about this? After the Late Late debate there is clearly a level of public appetite to examine the alternatives to the PR system or our multi-seat constituencies. So when I had the chance, I asked Ciaran how he felt it would start. Does it, I propositioned, start with his Green colleague, John Gormey, using his capacity as Minister for Local Government declaring he wants a reform and merely introducing a Bill? I remembered his predecessor Noel Dempsey doing something similar before the turn of the millennium and getting nowhere. What needs to happen before a Minister can make such moves and that they actually get somewhere? Why can every Fianna Fáil TD on the Late Late say they agree that reform is needed, but not be in a position to implement it?

The problem is that there is no set path. Are our politicians too scared to be the ones seen to destroy our nice cosy overrepresented system? Are TDs too lazy to introduce single-seat constituencies where they don’t have the option to pawn off any work to other reps for the same people? Ciaran, interested as he was, wasn’t really sure of a solution. If you do, I’d love to hear it.

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The Dáil trip is described in more detail by Mulley, Darragh and Mark. Oh, and because she asked for a shoutout, hello Steph. 😛

Meanwhile, Scally has started his photobloggery over at cdscally.com. Check it.

It’s a fact that’s rarely disputed in Ireland – and rightly so, given how futile most arguments would be – that political parties in Ireland are rarely the consultative, ideological entities they ideally ought to be. The Big Two, as you might have ascertained from some of my other writing, are pretty much the same thing (I will have a lengthy post soon on my arguments for how that particular problem should be dealt with). Sinn Féin might as well only have one policy for all the contributions they seem to make to public debate, Labour do their best but really ought to look beyond their blueshirted Dáil neighbours, and everyone else… well, since the PDs went their own seperate ways, they really isn’t an “everyone else” to speak of. Bring back Joe Higgins and we’ll talk.

That leaves the Lovely Girls – those oh so lovely girls of the Lovely Greens. Aren’t they lovely? Who needs an economic rescue when we can ban regular light bulbs? (Oh wait, we can’t.) Who wants to hear us talk about security in Northern Ireland when we can casually sidestep bigger issues like third-level fees, or the fact that all of our high-profile people are bailing from the party?

There’s something distinctly Irish, then, about the fact that Paul Gogarty has decided to up sticks as the Greens’ education spokesman. The decision, according to RTÉ, comes on the back of the Greens’ Árd Fheis party conference at the weekend, where the members voted to set up a group devising the party’s educational policies.

Hmm. When you’re the junior partner in coalition, do you think it’s particularly right for one of your most prominent members to throw a hissy fit and quit his job, merely because in the light of near unanimous government disapproval, the plebbians bothered him with such menial requests as asking to have a hand in policymaking? How very Irish indeed. Not quitting as Chair of the Education Committee, not quitting as a TD – just basically deciding that unless you can be the one who gets to decide on the Big Ideas, you don’t want to be the vehicle trying to get them in power. Which would Paul Gogarty rather do, implement the Green Party’s policies on education – or anything else, for that matter – or implement Paul Gogarty’s policies?

How very Irish indeed. I remember when I read Stephen Collins’ account of the formation of the Progressive Democrats in Breaking The Mould over Christmas, and how genuinely surprised I was to see that the new members of the party got such giddy thrills from actually being involved in policymaking! For Christ sake, why shouldn’t the members be involved in deciding what their association believes in? What’s the point in being part of a political party unless you have a chance to sway its opinions?

As anyone who was familiar with last week’s UCD Students’ Union elections will now no doubt be aware, there are apparently only two parts to politics: having a name people know, and pressing the flesh. It, apparently, has precious little to do with what you actually think about things. What the point, thus, of politics really is, I don’t know.

It’s the tribalism of party politics that has stopped Ireland from ever having true ideology in its politics. Apparently more than 50% of the population would now be in favour of a grand coalition. Maybe it’s about time – teaching the politicians of Ireland that they have far more in common with their “opponents” than that which seperates them mightn’t be a bad idea. If one of our Government parties – not even the big one, for crying out loud! – could breed leaders who didn’t get pissed off when Joe Soap wants his opinion counted too, then it might be start.

Toby Ziegler, as he often would, probably said it best:

Kill them all. Yeah. […] I mean everyone. You’re all bothering me. I want to be left alone. Clearly, the only way that’s gonna happen is to be alone. So I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to let you all go. [pause] Except the Yankees and the Knicks… and the Yankees and the Knicks are gonna need someone to play, so keep the Red Sox and the Lakers… and the Laker girls, and The Palm, and we’ll need to keep the people who work at The Palm. That’s it though. The Yankees, the Red Sox, the Knicks, the Lakers, the Laker girls, and anyone who works at The Palm. Sports, Laker girls, and a well-prepared steak. That’s all I need… Sometimes, I like to mix it up with Italian… and Chinese. All right, you can all stay, but don’t bug me. You’re on probation. Don’t forget. I was this close to banishing you.

PS – I do mean towing the line, and not toeing it. Tow in the AA Roadwatch sense, you see.