Elaine Byrne, Sunday Times, 4 September 2011

My photos of Morocco

‘Power is like being with a woman for the first time. You always want more.” Over our third pot of Berber herbal tea, the male elders of a small village in central Morocco are doing their best to explain the nature of political power to me.

The liberation of Libya has reawakened a political consciousness of events beyond its borders in a people that had grown accustomed to assuming nothing would ever change. “Gadaffi is gone because the people did not want a person who thought he was the country, they decided they wanted just a country instead,” was the verdict of Mohammed, a Berber farmer who said he was 50. Harsh mountain life has aged him by another 20 years.

Personality politics and terms of office being notched on bed posts are characteristics of Middle Eastern as well as northside Dublin politics. The unintended consequences of Gadaffi’s collapse have yet to be fully appreciated, but they may be consequences which Ireland can legitimately support, given our shared historical experiences with North Africa’s Berber people.

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Elaine Byrne, Sunday Times, 28 August 2011

My photos of Morocco

My interview on RTE’s John Murray Show about Ramadan, the thirty days of fasting from water & food from sunrise to sunset – from Marrakesh. Also with two Irish women who are converts to Islam, Carol-Ann Duggan & Charlotte Morshed. (about 30-40mins in)

‘You weren’t at mass this morning, of all mornings,” my sister said to me on the phone. “He praised you from the altar for representing the local community in the national media.” “He” is one of my closest friends, a Monsignor nearing retirement who is hoping that Rome will overlook him when it comes to appoint Irish bishops.

“You haven’t told him yet,” my sister guessed. A little defensively, I replied that I was going up to have breakfast with him. “Father,” I told him, “I’ve decided to do Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam, to experience what it’s like to be a Muslim.”

We had been over this ground before – Passover in Jerusalem, the evangelicals in Ghana, the Dublin Protestant phase, and then those factory rituals of Havana graveyards. “I’ll be travelling for a month, mostly to the Moroccan villages near the Sahara,” I told him. He laughed. “Are you sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for?” he cautioned. As it turned out, I hadn’t a clue.

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I’ve been getting a lot of emails and phonecalls from undergraduates and Masters students from universities around Ireland about the “next step” – the graduate job search. Instead of repeating myself, here’s some internship and graduate programme suggestions and maybe this blog post can crowdsource some other suggestions and I’d add them to the list.

I went through the UN internship programme. Apart from the experience of living abroad, working with people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives, it provided the opportunity to translate academic training into the policy world and ultimately led to consultancies with the UN and the World Bank. Although many internships are not paid, the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term financial pain.

How to get an internship

Irish Aid – interviews each Autumn
OECD – keep checking website
World Bank - Junior Professional Associate programme, also see summer internship programmes
UNDP - internship, junior professional programme
European Union stagier - (paid!)
Asian development bank - Ireland is a member of most of the international banks, therefore Irish people can apply as interns but most Irish people are not aware and they particularly promote women
UK political and policy jobs and internships
EU political and policy jobs and internships

Academic opportunities
OSCE – also contact the individual field offices
Canadian fast-track civil service programme for non-nationals (need to root around to find)
European Youth Forum
College of Bruge

Best of luck!

If the Tank Field in Cork was in Dublin, the issues it raises would probably receive the national attention it deserves. The issues around the Tank Field are not unique to Cork but have relevance to the administration of local government nationally and the decision making process within the Department of Education. It is a case-study in governance and public policy.

The Tank Field has divided the local community, split the council and focused attention on::

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  • the dominant role of the county manager in local government
  • the power of a city council to take over a community resource
  • how competing priorities within the Irish planning process are decided upon
  • the deficiencies in the planning process
  • the deficiencies in the Department of Education decision making process
  • the role of the GAA in the planning process
  • issues regarding the expenditure of public funds
  • issues regarding the preferential treatment afforded to Gaelscoileanna

More information:
• The Tank Field remains a live issue. Local councillors voted last month against a request to rezone the land for a new Gaelscoil. Irish Examiner report - Tank Field Examiner
• Eoin English of the Irish Examiner put both sides of the argument for and against the Tank Field here. Eoin English Tank Field
• The Gaelscoil invited public representatives to an open day today to hear its side of the story last week.
• Dr Aodh Quinlivan from University College Cork recently published a book chronicling local government in Cork. One of the chapters of Inside City Hall examines the issues around the Tank Field.
• My 2009 Irish Times piece on the tank field:
• The response to my piece by the Gaelscoil:
• FOI documents and further information on the tank field
• Those pro the tank field have set up a website – http://www.tankfield.ie/

We the Citizens concluded its assembly in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham on Sunday June 26th after two months of regional meetings in Athlone, Kilkenny, Cork, Galway, Tallaght, Blancherstown and Letterkenny.  RTÉ’s Prime Time did an audience special on We the Citizens last Monday. You can catch the episode here.

 
The first session on Saturday morning was devoted to three main themes: the role of the TD; whether a new electoral system might change that; and whether the number of TDs should be reduced. The results of the 31 recommendations, voted on by members of the citizens’ assembly, can be found here. The second session focused on the Seanad. The final session on Sunday centred on tax and spends choices. Recommendations will be posted here as soon as they are collated.

The academic team of Eoin O’Malley, Jane Suiter and I were ably led by David Farrell. Together, we conceived and developed this project over the past year. The Executive Director, Caroline Erskine, was expertly assisted by Órla De Burca and Úna Faulkner in implementing the project. Luke Mcmanus did fantastic work recording the meetings.
The virtuoso, Fiach Mac Conghail, chaired all the sessions and was guided by the Board. The project would not have happened if it were not for the fantastic efforts of a large number of facilitators and note takers who ensured that the meetings were conducted in a deliberative fashion. Ken Carty, Clodagh Harris, Theresa Reidy, Nat O’Connor and Fergal O’Brien were very generous with their time giving expert testimony. Most of all thanks is due to the members of the public that attended and believed in the possibility of an idea that greater participation by people in-between elections is positive for Irish politics.

Sunday Times, July 3 2011.

‘But sure, isn’t the Dail elected by the people, an assembly of Irish citizens? What are you going about trying to set up a parallel political system for? A citizens’ assembly doesn’t make any sense at all, Elaine, and I’m still waiting on my pint.”

The thing about my dad’s rural Wicklow pub is that the customers thrive on outdoing one another to get straight to the point quickest. Academics and PhDs hold no water here. These days, the customers are curious about We the Citizens, Ireland’s first national citizens’ assembly, which held a meeting at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in Dublin last weekend.

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The weekend of June 24-26th, 150 randomly selected people (by MRBI) from across Ireland will meet in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham as part of Ireland’s first National Citizens Assembly. It has been a long road for all the team at We the Citizens since the launch two months ago — We The Citizens – youtube In the last six weeks we have travelled to Kilkenny, Cork, Galway, Athlone, Letterkenny, Tallaght and Blanchstown and listened to the views of those that attended which have informed what will be discussed at next weekend’s event.

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For me personally, it’s especially exciting to see an idea from a couple of columns I wrote in the Irish Times last December 2009 and February 2010 come to life, thanks to Atlantic Philanthropies who believed in the idea of deliberative democracy through a citizens’ assembly. Irish Times February 2010: Let the people have their say on type of country they want; Irish Times December 2009: Mad-as-hell Icelanders won’t be taking it any more

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Sunday Business Post – June 12 2011

‘A member of parliament, a member of government, is concerned with social justice, with the creation of wealth and its distribution. As a judge one isn’t concerned with social justice as such, one is concerned with doing justice with the parties before him. It’s a different task.”

In this interview with David McCullagh, Declan Costello firmly made the distinction between the legislator who makes the laws and the judge whose job it is to apply them. Costello as a politician was radical on economic and social matters yet deeply conservative as a judge. These two public lives seemed at odds with one another. The 25-year-old’s inaugural Dáil speech in 1951 revealed two central tenets of his life – a belief in social justice and a strong personal faith -when he spoke of the ‘‘unChristian level of poverty’’ in Ireland.

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Elaine Byrne, May 18 2011 in The Times (behind paywall)

Interview in the Financial Times, May 20 2011 by David Gardner and John Murray Brown

Elaine Byrne, Sunday Business Post, 22 May 2011

‘‘My elder brother’s gone, poetry is daunted; A stave of the barrel is smashed and the wall of learning broken’’ Garret was a political pioneer who didn’t always get it right, but made it his life’s work to improve political and social conditions in Ireland, writes Dr Elaine Byrne

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Elaine Byrne: What incentive is there for a government to introduce changes that may allow for the possibility of exposing itself to unprecedented scrutiny? The Sunday Times Published: 24 April 2011

Since his election as taoiseach almost 50 days ago, Enda Kenny has officially received two devastating critiques on the administration of power in contemporary Ireland. His response to the findings of the Moriarty tribunal, which investigated payments to politicians, and the Nyberg report on the banking crisis, has been a commitment “for the sake of our democracy” to introduce the “most comprehensive programme of political reform since the 1930s”. I want to believe him but is his definition of political reform wholly counterproductive and intrinsically limited?

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Elaine Byrne: There is apparently no room in Irish public discourse for any criticism of Europe. Instead, it seems, we should be grateful for their guidance
The Sunday Times Published: 17 April 2011

Buried deep in the BBC website is an entry entitled “common Irish slang”. This guide for would-be British visitors to Ireland helpfully explains that “to blather or rabbit on about something is to waffle at length” and “to talk 90 to the dozen is to talk so fast nobody has a clue what you are saying”.

When this method of communication fails, Irish public debate diverts itself into ad hominem attacks on those with whom we disagree. Even those who have held the office of taoiseach have been guilty of this. Bertie Ahern dismissed campaigners against the Lisbon treaty as “loolahs”, and wondered why commentators asking critical questions about the property boom didn’t “commit suicide”. Now, those advocating debt restructuring are being rejected as “celebrity economists”.

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Phoenix Magazine Young Bloods Profile – Dr Elaine Byrne – March 25 2011 —– phoenix

Please read while listening to OneRepublic.

Elaine Byrne, Sunday Business Post 27 March 2011

This is not rocket science. At the heart of Michael Lowry and Denis O’Brien’s objections to The Moriarty report is the assertion that the High Court judge, with over four decades of legal experience, ‘‘outrageously abused the tribunal’s ability to form opinions which are not substantiated by evidence or fact’’.

Mr Justice Moriarty did not make a definitive finding of corruption about the decision by the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications to award the lucrative second GSM licence to Esat Digifone in 1996. He instead, and very deliberately, used the word ‘‘influence’’. Making a direct comparison with the activities of Charles Haughey , Moriarty determined that Lowry had intentionally intervened in the decision-making process to bring ‘‘improper influence to bear on public servants for the end as sought’’.

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Fianna Fáil collapses. Labour slips up. Fine Gael triumphs. Meanwhile, it’s not just Gerry Adams who’s fuzzy on economics Elaine Byrne in the Guardian 23 February 2011

The word “unprecedented” has lost all force in Ireland. The general election this Friday is teeming with so many unparalleled moments that even “historic” now seems like a hackneyed term. A fundamental realignment of Irish politics is under way. Before next weekend is out, Ireland will witness the largest turnover in seats and personnel since independence was achieved in 1922.

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The prospects for default? Elaine Byrne in the Irish Times February 18 2010

I WROTE some of my first opinion pieces for The Irish Times during the 2007 election. I had just finished college and was working for the United Nations. Living abroad offered me the opportunity to look at Irish elections with a different perspective, without the distraction of short-term outlooks that election campaigns induce. Sometimes the further you are away from something, the clearer things can become.

Irisheconomy.ie discussion on this article

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ANALYSIS: Two of Ireland’s elder statesmen – Declan Costello and Garret FitzGerald – share memories of their careers and Fine Gael’s first 75 years over dinner, writes Elaine Byrne in the Irish Times November 15 2008

THERE WAS something rather charming about the tickled way Declan Costello and Garret FitzGerald read aloud the ambitious draft of article one – “All right to private property is subordinated to the public right and welfare of the nation . . .” The 1922 Free State Constitution, chaired initially by Michael Collins, was drafted in the Constitution Room of the Shelbourne Hotel. The Constitution Room, restored to its original glory during the recent refurbishment of the hotel, has on display an original version of the Constitution.

I invited to dinner these two statesmen of Fine Gael, to listen to their reminiscences about their careers and look back on 75 years of the party to which they were devoted. We ate in the hotel on the day Barack Obama was elected to the American presidency. While most of the world was huddled around their televisions and laptops to discern the future political direction of the United States, these two titans of Irish political history gathered to talk about the past.

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A new website will assess each party’s campaign pledges in key areas and monitor implementation, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times 11 February 2010

Reformcard.ie

politicalreform.ie

IN 1987, not long after the Dáil met following the general election that year, there was a Private Members’ debate on political reform. Paddy Cooney, a Fine Gael TD for Longford Westmeath, dismissed the suggestion that ministerial pensions should not be paid to sitting TDs, describing it as “ill-defined emotionalism”. It has only taken 24 years for this mild reform to be implemented. After the current election, such payments will be abolished. There are two reasons why such an implementation deficit exists in Ireland.

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We are distracted from the only game in town – the European summit in March – as the world views us as a country under foreign rule, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times February 4 2011

“IRELAND IS well on the way to bankruptcy.” That’s the verdict of an acquaintance of mine who is the manager of a multibillion- dollar investment portfolio for influential American blue-chip clients with significant financial interests in Ireland. Since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) came to Dublin in November, Mark – I’ll give him that name as he would rather retain his anonymity – has been in weekly contact about the prospects for Irish political stability.

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OPINION: Bizarre week in politics has overshadowed need for public debate on EU-IMF bailout 28 January 2011, Irish Times

IT HAS been an odd week. The Taoiseach is no longer president of his party but remains leader of the country. The Greens have resigned from government but still vote with the Government. The resignation of eight ministers has created the constitutional imperative which means that the rest of the Cabinet can behave as they like from now on because they are constitutionally indispensable.

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Where are all the *young* voices in the Irish media? Are you a regional reporter, activist/advocate, policy expert etc and have something to contribute to public debate? This is a tool to showcase alternative voices to radio and television producers.

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In the comment section below, please provide these details:

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“The constitution may for a time seem lost. The character of the country cannot be lost. The ministers of the Crown will find that it is not so easy to put down for ever an ancient and respectable nation by abilities, however great, and by power and corruption, however irresistible. Liberty may repair her golden beam, and with redoubled heat animate the country.

The cry of loyalty will not be long continued against the principles of liberty. Loyalty is a noble, a judicious, and a capricious principle; but in these countries loyalty, distinct from liberty, is corruption, not loyalty.

The cry of the connexion will not in the end avail against the principles of liberty. Connexion is a wise and a profound policy; but connexion without an Irish Parliament is connexion without its own principle; without analogy of condition, without the pride of honour which should attend it, is innovation, is peril, is subjugation – not connexion. The cry of disaffection will in the end avail against the principles of liberty. Identification is a solid and imperial maxim necessary for the preservation of freedom, necessary for that of empire; but without union of hearts, with a separate Government, and without a separate Parliament, identification is extinction, is dishonour, is conquest – not identification.

Yet I do not give up my country. I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her cheek a glow of beauty.

Thou art not conquered, beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson on thy lips and on thy cheek;
And death’s pale flag is not abroad there.’

While a plank of the vessel holds together I will not leave her. Let the courtier present his loyal sail to the breeze, and carry the barque of his faith with every wind that blows: I will remain anchored here; with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall.”

For most Irish people, the internal leadership contest within Fianna Fáil was nothing more than the last sting of a dying wasp. Guardian January 19 2011

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The Taoiseach played Nero during the incredible weeks from July to September 2008, writes ELAINE BYRNE in Irish Times January 14 2010

NERO FIDDLED while Rome burned. The infamous inaction of the Roman emporer finds an echo in Brian Cowen’s time as Taoiseach. Nero occupied himself with unimportant matters and neglected priorities during a crisis – that has been the distinguishing feature of Cowen’s tenure. A timeline of events from the July golf outing to the September bank guarantee paints a picture of incompetence and a deep failure to realise the severity of Ireland’s economic crisis.

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Young Irishwomen will decide the outcome of one of the most important general elections in the history of the Irish state. As the most politically powerful demographic in Ireland, the prospects for Irish economic independence will depend on the choice that this constituency of key swing voters will make. Sunday Business Post January 2 2011

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Happy New Year Ireland. John Spillane and WB Yeats on Ireland in the Coming Times of 2011.

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Today is the first day of a new year that will change everything about Ireland. As the opinion polls suggest, the upcoming election will dramatically transform the party system. Irish public life may yet bear witness to a sharp and sudden intervention into national discourse by diverse actors seeking to fundamentally influence public opinion on economic policy, public sector reform and political renewal. The social and financial consequences of IMF/ECB intervention will gather momentum. Irish Times January 1 2011

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Profound crises often trigger new forces. Is this about to happen in the stale wasteland of Irish politics? Irish Times December 15

ALL OF the opinion polls over the last two years propose that the next government will be comprised of a coalition of the centre-left and the centre-right. Public debate has thus focused on how low the floor of Fianna Fáil support will be; the rise of the left as a force in Irish politics; and the policy differences between Labour and Fine Gael.

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It’s official – Iceland is emerging from recession, with growth up in the last quarter, and inflation and interest rates down. What lessons can we learn from our North Atlantic neighbours, and can Ireland follow Iceland out of the financial doldrums? Irish Times December 11 THE PRESIDENT OF ICELAND, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, expressed his deep annoyance at the start of the year at a joke about his country: “What’s the difference between Iceland and Ireland? One letter and six months.” The gag, first heard on the BBC’s daily current-affairs programme Europe Today a year earlier, implied that Ireland was facing an economic collapse as severe as Iceland’s.

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Ireland has never confronted crisis very well. The second world war was politely referred to as “the Emergency”. The bitter and protracted Northern Ireland conflict that viciously tore a generation apart was gently described as “the Troubles.” Guardian November 29 2010

We have yet to invent a terminology that can adequately express what is happening to us. As the poet Theo Dorgan told RTÉ radio last week: “We have lost the words to describe what is occurring.” The Irish Times went so far as to evoke the memory of WB Yeats in its unnerving editorial “Was it for this” two weeks ago.

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Posted by Elaine Byrne

MY TEN PROPOSALS FOR POLITICAL REFORM

Detailed information on rationale for proposals contained in links within each proposal taken from my Irish Times columns. The reason for reform.

1. Publish full political financial accounts online, greater powers for Standards Commission and ratify GRECO recommendations.

2. Reform committee system, repeal Abbeylara decision and give committees renewed investigative powers.

3. Rebalance relationship between executive and legislature as was intended in Article 28 of Constitution

4. Meaningful open government with stronger FOI legislation, new whistleblower and lobbying legislation and public appointments board.

5. Reform local government with revenue raising powers and reform planning powers

6. Diverse representation in public life through a reformed Senand which would encompass island of Ireland and diaspora

7. Introduce gender quotas, lower voting age to 16, reform decision making process

8. Change the electoral system

9. Definition of Republic in constitution and statement of values

10. Citizens assembly to be implemented.

Irish Times editoral November 17 2010 Was it for this?

In memory of September 1913 by William Butler Yeats

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

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Ireland’s economic future is being decided by events far beyond our shores, which we cannot influence, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES May 11 2010

DEMOCRACY IS a fragile thing. It becomes even more delicate when taken for granted. For many, the duty of citizenship to democratic action ends when a vote is cast at election time. In the period between the translation of individual choices into the formation of power, apathy and complacency captures public participation, and people just stop caring.

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Artefacts from the State’s original senate offer a glimpse at a turbulent era in our history, explains former taoiseach Liam Cosgrave writes Elaine Byrne in the Irish Times 29 July 2008

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.”

SO WROTE WB YEATS in 1920, when the War of Independence raged and the year Liam Cosgrave was born. Arthur Griffith, leader of the Irish delegation at the Treaty negotiations, sought to ensure the status of the unionist and Protestant minority in a new Irish Free State. The day the Treaty was signed, December 6th 1921, Griffith met with southern unionist representatives and assured them of due representation in the Senate. Griffith did not live to realise his promise and WT Cosgrave, president of the Executive Council, fulfilled Griffith’s legacy.

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Annual General Michael Collins and President Arthur Griffith Ceremony Glasnevin Cemetery August 15 2010

I want to tell you a story today about two men born in the age of Parnell.

Ireland after Parnell, in the dying years of the 1800s, was a grey place of paralysis. Politically stuck and fighting with itself.

The opportunity to right the wrongs of the Act of Union seemed lost.
The promise of Home Rule forlorn.

Yet this was a time of opportunity.
Of potential. Of vision. Of capability. Of hope.

The newly born GAA was gaining momentum, the Abbey Theatre was founded, the co-operative movement was established, the goals of the land league were recognised and the literary revival came alive. By the turn of the 20th century, Ireland was reimaging itself and this gave momentum to the possibility of a new politics.

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• Parnell Summer School, Woodenbridge Wicklow, August 2010: (Speech from chapter of book published after Christmas) Irish Times media report.

• Ógra Fianna Fáil Belfast conference August 2010.

• Magill Summer School, Donegal July 2010 speech: Political Reform, the beginning, middle and end. Irish Times media report.

• Byrne / Perry Summer school Gorey June 2010 speech The redefinition of the Irish Republic Gorey Echo media report.

An enlightened swap of ideas between factions from the Middle East and North has lost its gleam to rigid mindsets in the IRISH TIMES JUNE 29 2010

DAVID HAD just finished his three years of military service in the Israeli army when we first met about 10 years ago at a reconciliation centre on the Falls Road in west Belfast. A European Union youth programme had gathered 30 young Israeli, Palestinian and Irish people in their early 20s for a residential conference on peace.

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As a culture we permit alcoholics the luxury of euphemisms. We are delighted to indulge our leaders the same way, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES June 22 2010

ALCOHOLISM IS a deeply engrained cultural phenomenon that we celebrate in Ireland with euphemisms that mask its black destruction.

The alcoholism grows into the white elephant in the small room that everybody walks around and kneels under while at the same time pretending that everything is perfectly normal. It is easier to avoid than to acknowledge. To ignore than to confront.

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Enda Kenny brought FG back from the dead but doubts are growing as to whether he has what it takes to win power, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES JUNE 15 2010

RICHARD BRUTON joined a large Fine Gael contingent to celebrate the marriage of a popular member of the party’s organisation last Friday.

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As an undertaking family, the mortuary became an extension of our home. Death was normal, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES JUNE 8 2010

BEFORE WE built our funeral home, we planted potatoes in the top field. Delicately measured rows of hand ploughed drills with seeds waiting to grow. They were then proudly harvested in the hour before dinner with my grandfather’s ragged three-pronged fork. When the frost threatened to come, the potatoes were piled deep into big hairy bags and stored in one of the stony farmsheds away from the sow pigs.

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Civic society is doing much to break down the Border but our politicians could do an awful lot more, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES June 1 2010

MARTIN MCGUINNESS was not what I expected at last week’s North/South consultative conference in Farmleigh.

The Deputy First Minister for Northern Ireland spoke at length about the rosemary plant that Gerry Adams had given him after a recent trip to the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem. Apparently, it is “flourishing” and he tends to it every morning. He also told the North/South civic society representatives about his love of fishing and how it took time to build personal friendships with Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson.

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Will the terms of reference for the Irish Banking Inquiry be as wide as that of Iceland?

The Irish public does not have any such opportunity to engage in an inquiry which from the outset is perceived to lack legitimacy because of the decision to hold the investigation in private, unlike similar inquiries in the US and Britain. To that end, I have registered the domain name www.bankinginquiry.ie and perhaps the governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan, would use it to ask the public what questions they believe should be asked, as was the case with the the Treasury Select Committee in Britain which held an inquiry to “identify lessons that can be learned form the banking crisis” and received more than 6,000 written questions from the public.

Selected quotes from the Irish Icelandic Banking Inquiry (Translated in English)

1. “ministers and representatives of government bodies passed the blame for failure to perform duties and no one assumed responsibility.” p.107

2. “When the banking system had become far too big, relative to the size of Icelandic economy, the governmental authorities needed to respond”

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Loyalty to Fianna Fáil and its leader was Brian Lenihan snr’s lodestone. His son must take a new direction, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES April 27 2010

‘WILL THE Taoiseach indicate when the legislation on wandering horses will be introduced in the House?”

When Brian Lenihan made his first, rather unremarkable, Dáil contribution 14 years ago this month, he probably did not envisage the remarkable circumstances he currently finds himself in.

Acquaintances of the Minister for Finance describe him as singleminded. His absolute selfbelief is characterised by his own sense of defiant patriotism and resolute belief in his abilities to turn the corner of economic instability.

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Labour is primarily an urban party and must make inroads in rural constituencies if it wants to succeed, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES April 20 2010

EAMON GILMORE is good at oratory. His “One Ireland” rhetoric at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Galway paid tribute to the hope of an Ireland defined by “employers and employees. Farmers and business people. Private sector and public sector”. It rhymed well with Barack Obama’s signature line – “There is no red state America; there is no blue state of America; there is the United States of America.”

But just how capable is the Labour Party in translating these nice sounding words into plausible actions?

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Thanks to David Molloy for this brilliant presentation on Ireland’s electoral system. oireachtas-facts2

David is an Irish Politics student at Trinity College Dublin.

Who will be accountable when we discover, like in Iceland, that no global bogeyman was to blame for our banking collapse? asks ELAINE BYRNE in the IRISH TIMES 14 April 2010

THE SPECIAL investigation commission, established by the Icelandic parliament, published its nine-volume 2,300-page report yesterday into the causes of Iceland’s ecnomic collapse.

It found the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 was not the primary cause of Iceland’s economic meltdown. An appendix to the report concludes Icelandic banks had ignored repeated warnings that their size and rapid expansion exposed them to great risks. “It seems likely that they would have come to grief eventually, even without a worldwide financial crisis.” (p. 107)

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Thank you for your kind invitation to speak to this 88th ASTI annual conference and for your patience over the next fifteen or so minutes.

As a former pupil of an ASTI school, Tullow Community School in County Carlow, I am especially proud to recite before you the motto of my alma mater which neatly encapsulates the ethos of my message today. Our motto was “to nurture the wellbeing of all so that they may grow in knowledge, conscience and compassion” sums up very well the spirit of educationalists and what they seek to achieve.

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As the teacher union conferences get under way, more focus needs to be given to the future of Irish education, writes ELAINE BYRNE in the Irish Times APril 6, 2010

THE ANNUAL teacher union conferences are currently under way and much of the focus over the next week will centre on their response to the public service reform deal recently brokered at Croke Park.

The motions on the various programmes reflect deep concern among teachers about the security of their jobs, pay and pensions.

The cohesiveness of the trade union movement will also come under scrutiny given the growing crevices between the expectations of union leadership and membership from that negotiation process. Understandably, these issues will dominate internal debate at the various conferences.

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