Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Old Dogs and Very Old Tricks
Well, that seemed to blow over quite quickly. Suddenly, does anyone care about Beverley Flynn’s €41k problem? With Patrick Neary just jumping ship as the Financial Regulator, the chances are that the analysis part of the story are going to be swallowed by Neary news in the weekend news cycles.
To summarise the affair: after losing a libel case against RTE earlier in the decade, over news that Flynn (when working with National Irish Bank) had actively assisted customers in setting up offshore bank accounts, Beverly Flynn was kicked out of the Fianna Fáil party. Nonetheless, she fought the 2007 General Election as an independent candidate, and retained her seat. This is where the curious stuff comes to light: as an Independent TD, Bev was entitled to an annual allowance of €41k, meant to assist her in her duties in lieu of the assistance of a party structure. Of course, Flynn worked her way back into FF after the election – and that’s where the dispute arises.
Public Transport and Broadband
Do Ministers actually ever talk to each other? You have to wonder. Maybe Fine Gael are doing such sniping these days that the cabinet have to divert their attention to fending off the opposition rather than managing to attend meetings, or lob each other the odd text message.
Last week, trying to capitalise on the empty news cycles, the Government launched their Sustainable Travel and Transport Action Plan, basically encouraging people to use public transport in getting to work – or better yet, get them to try and work from home as much as practicable. Not a bad idea – anything to get cars off the road surely helps the country out, and saving the inevitably arduous task of having to build another lane onto the M50 in, oh, about three weeks.
But then, as quietly as they could manage it, we had the subtle news – ironically, while people weren’t supposed to be reading the papers – that Luas ticket prices are going up by 5c, Dublin Bus are raising their fares by 10c a pop, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann are hiking them by 10% – even the already ludicrously overpriced taxis are getting another 50c put on the initial fare.
Now, it doesn’t take the TK Whitakers of this world to realise that this, rather than stimulating their use, will put them off. What’s particularly irking, though, is that such moves come at a time when it’s becoming gradually cheaper to drive. Granted, cars aren’t getting cheaper, but insurance – the thing that usually stops 22-year-old males from The Pale like myself from taking to the roads – has become more realistically priced, and petrol is constantly coming down. The Esso across the road from my student gaff sold diesel for 119.5c a litre when we moved in last May – now it’s down to 93.5c, and it’s not going to get any higher for a while, no matter what swindles OPEC might try to unleash on the rest of the world.
Politics
Great start to this whole daily blogging routine – my host has been down since mid-afternoon and has only just resurfaced, minutes before the day is out. Fantastic start, really. You can’t help but love a good omen.
But anyway, the first post. For a week or so I’ve been trying to come up with a topic worth blogging about, somewhere in the happy medium between easy reading and not-insignificant thought. It wasn’t until yesterday – irony of ironies, the last day of 2008 – that I happened upon something I thought I’d share.
Being the time of year that it is, the world is awash with new hope and ideals, of people outlining hopes and dreams for what they want of 2009. Tickled as I was by writing a blog on the idea, I was at a total loss as to what to specifically focus on. Yesterday, though, I got my idea.