Dáil Privilege - Was Alan Farrell Acting Alone?

Peadar Toibín, Sinn Féin TD for Meath West, raised an interesting question on Saturday with Claire Byrne yesterday. Is it entirely a coincidence that Alan Farrell, Fine Gael TD for Dublin Fingal, may or may not have tested the limits of Dáil privilege at the same time that a case on that very topic is before the courts?

The panel discussion didn’t stay on that topic, as the panelists were there to bury Gerry Adams and not to discuss wider issues of freedom of speech and media ownership. Let’s hope some other media is a little more curious about the nature of coincidence.

Especially in the light of an interview given by Government Chief Whip Regina Doherty to Richard Crowley on the News at One on Friday. Doherty contradicted herself in less than a minute on whether or not she had spoken to Farrell in the course of the interview. The relevant section starts at 11 minutes and forty-five seconds into a fourteen-minute, two-second piece:

CROWLEY: Was it wise of Alan Farrell to drag in Mr Ellis and Mr Ferris into this?

DOHERTY: Do you know actually, I haven’t spoken to him all week, but I think given the chatter that was going on inside Leinster House all week and the names of what are parliamentary colleagues I think he was attempting to allow them the opportunity, the same opportunity as Gerry Adams –

CROWLEY: Do you think? Do you think?

DOHERTY: Well, I’m assuming that’s what his intentions were.

CROWLEY: He didn’t speak to you beforehand about it, did he?

DOHERTY: Unfortunately, I wasn’t in that day. I put my back out this week so I was off that week –

CROWLEY: He didn’t speak to you on the phone then, as the Chief Whip, before he raised that in the Dáil?

DOHERTY: Not beforehand we didn’t speak, no, but obviously we have spoken since.

So, Doherty has either obviously spoken to Deputy Farrell since, or else she hasn’t spoken to him all week. It plainly can’t be both, and it is very much in the public interest to find out which.

Because it is very much in the public interest to find out who, if anyone, put Deputy Farrell up to this, or if this idea is a solo run on his part.

Deputy Toibín suggested on Saturday with Claire Byrne that Deputy Farrell was put up to it by Niall O’Connor, political correspondent of the Irish Independent. O’Connor was also a guest on Saturday with Claire Byrne and he vehemently denied the suggestion, saying that while certainly he had been seen talking with Deputy Farrell during the week, it was about some fun run in Malahide that O’Connor was going to cover for the Evening Herald, also part of the Independent Group.

We can only take O’Connor’s work on that. For all that, readers are warned not to be surprised if a policy of de Farrello nihil nisi bonum – of Farrell, nothing but good – is instituted among the Independent Group. Over the next number of months Deputy Farrell may appear kissing babies, weeping over refugees and mentioned as shoo-in for a top cabinet job once Enda finally shuffles off within the pages of the many papers of the Denis O’Brien media empire, or on the airwaves of its broadcasting arm, Newstalk and Today FM.

Because the co-incidences are mounting here. It is an extra-ordinary coincidence that:

• Out of the 4,000-odd people killed as a result of the Troubles in the North, the Brian Stack murder is now of greater parliamentary concern than the 3,999 others;
• That the limits of Dáil privilege are tested to their breaking point at the same time as a case on that very issue is before the courts, taken by the publisher of the Irish Independent, Denis O’Brien.

The majority, if not the totality, of op-ed pieces in the papers condemn Adams as operating to a different standard as every other Dáil leader. But of course he is, because he comes from a very different place to the rest of Dáil. The whole purpose of the peace process was to involve Adams and others like him in regular politics, and drawing a line under the past is a necessary part of that, just as it has been in all post-conflict situations all over the world.

It is extra-ordinarily craven, pathetic and embarrassing for the political establishment to be so short-sighted about Adams’ role in the past forty years of Irish history, to the extent of risking the peace for doubtful short-term gain. Because the peace is at risk.

Adams only looks a hawk south of the border. He is very much a dove on the other side and, while the southern media might dream of day talking social justice with Eoin Ó Broin and Louise O’Reilly, they are naïve in the extreme if they think the hawks have all flown away in the North, and if there aren’t one or two waiting for Adams and McGuinness to move on and ask people if Bobby Sands died in vain.

Part of this naivety stems from a new, partitionist mentality in the south that is not only quite happy with a divided Ireland but want no part of those troublesome, scared-of-the-future, stuck-in-the-past Nordies.

But leaving aside the aspirations and speaking only of practicalities, the peace is as impactful on the Republic of Ireland as Brexit. A land border is a land border and if things kick off again in the North they will kick off in the South just as sure as Denis O’Brien likes suing newspapers.

And because of that Deputy Doherty should tell us exactly what is going on with Alan Farrell and who, if anyone, is pulling his stings. Because one day that puppet-master might pull the wrong string, and whole damn place is drenched in the blood of innocents once more.

Can the Seanad Save Free Speech?

RTÉ and the Irish Times are both before the Courts this morning to see if they are allowed to broadcast and/or print speeches made in the houses of the Oireachtas. It’s an awful situation for a democracy to find itself in, but crisis can often lead to opportunity. And the very peculiar current crisis does present the Seanad with the opportunity to be what its advocates claim it is – relevant to the proper governance of the State.

You remember the Seanad – it’s the theoretical upper house of the bicameral Oireachtas, a growling, snarling watchdog that keeps the Government of the day on their toes. Or so, at least, its proponents would have you believe during the referendum on the continued existence of the Seanad, which the sovereign people choose to retain in a referendum held on the 4th of October, 2013.

Since then, the Seanad has done nothing – zip, zero, the null set, nada, nothing – to show itself worthy of the nation’s faith. Senators who were passionate and vocal contributors to the save-the-Seanad debate haven’t been heard from since, and the chamber looks like what it’s been long-perceived to be, a sanatorium for recovering politicians who didn’t quite make it to the lower chamber.

However. God never closes one door but He opens another, as the old people used to say, and circumstances have given the Seanad the chance to be heard.

If the current court order to redact details of the injunction issued on an RTÉ report into the relationship with businessman Denis O’Brien is upheld, the Seanad won’t have to do anything. There will be a fully-fledged constitutional crisis then, and God only knows how it’ll resolve.

If, however, the courts do not uphold the decision to injunct RTÉ and redact the details of the judgement, then An Taoiseach can roll into the Dáil – one week from now, because the Oireachtas is enjoying a well-deserved break currently – and proclaim what he has always known in his heart, that Ireland is the best little country in the world in which to do free speech. Any further questions will be brushed away, and dissent will be mashed into the carpet by the Government’s massive and well-whipped majority.

Which is why the Seanad must do what the Dáil cannot, and take a stand for freedom of speech. The Government want this thing to go away very, very dearly as, once it starts to unravel properly, goodness only knows where the breadcrumb trail might lead.

Ironically, in the light of previous relationships, the Labour Party may be more eager to see the issue go away than Fine Gael. The marriage referendum and Bench-marking II will go down well with the two wings that make that Labour Party and, after four hard years and the predicted giveaway budget will make the hat-trick. Labour don’t want to see their gifts to the Labour core support blown away in a political storm.

Which is why the nation must look to the Seanad to safeguard its rights. There is nothing that can be done in the Dáil, because of the Government’s steamroller majority. But the Government’s majority in the Seanad is nominal, if it exists at all. That gives the Senators some elbow room.

The powers of the Seanad are quite limited, but there is one shot in its locker. Article 27.1 of the Constitution states that “A majority of the members of Seanad Éireann and not less than one-third of the members of Dáil Éireann may by a joint petition addressed to the President by them under this Article request the President to decline to sign and promulgate as a law any Bill to which this article applies on the ground that the Bill contains a proposal of such national importance that the will of the people thereon ought to be ascertained.”

There is a bill due next week proposing that nobody may own more than twenty per cent of the media. Which sounds great, except that the law is not retrospective. If anybody already owns more than twenty per cent of the media, he or she can keep it.

That’s not good enough. Between the findings of the Moriarty Tribunal, the Siteserv controversy and the current attempt to muzzle the democratically elected representatives of the people, it’s time to have a look at the precise relationship between the Government and #REDACTED.

Can the upper house stand for the public good when the lower house either can’t or won’t? Will a majority of members of the Seanad vote to send this press ownership Bill to the President, and let the cards fall as they will after that?

Such a move still needs the backing of one third of Dáil deputies, which is fifty-five of them. The Government has 101 votes, which leaves sixty-four left over. They can surely scrounge fifty-five votes from those sixty-four if the upper house raises the flag of Liberty.

Eighteen months ago the Seanad told that sovereign people that it was relevant in the democratic processes of the state. Now it has a chance to prove it. History awaits.

George Hook

The great language of Yiddish has many beautiful words. “Zaftig” is the word for a beautiful woman who is, in Oscar Hammerstein II’s phrase, broad where a broad should be broad. Isn’t it fantastic? It’s a word that’s inherently delightful to say out loud, just for the joy of saying it.

“Chutzpah” is another one of those words. It means gall, or cheek, or nerve. It was exemplified by a man known to your correspondent in more dissolute days who was getting grief in the Dole Office at Augustine Street, Galway.

He claimed he was skint. The lady behind the hatch doubted the bone fides of his attempts to find work and, God bless her, she mightn’t have been far wrong. She demanded proof from my friend that he’d tried to find work in the next period or else his dole was getting cut.

My friend said he would certainly try to find work, but only if Rialtas na hÉireann, as represented by the Galway dole office, would provide him with stamps necessary to post letters of application in a pre-internet age. He could not buy stamps himself being, as we said at the start, skint.

Getting the dole office to buy your stamps is chutzpah. It’s a fantastic word, and a quality that is 98% galling but 2% a cause for admiration, for having the sheer neck to go for it.

Chutzpah does not even begin to describe two tweets from Mr George Hook last night. They are the first two in this screen shot:




Aren’t they astonishing? “Hook controversial by conviction; Dunphy by opportunism.” Indeed. Quite. Of course.

For those equally traumatised as your correspondent, help is at hand. The Phoenix Magazine printed a story on September 23rd about George and his adventures with Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V in a Rugby World Cup preview piece for the Indo. I’ve taken the liberty of scanning it – just click the image below and it should rise to legible and hilarious detail.

In the States, you get the road for doing that. But we’re currently redefining what we consider journalism here, aren’t we?

We Are Sam Smyth

The ironic thing about it all, of course, is that Sam Smyth’s show isn’t even that good in the first place. Look at this picture of Smyth and Alastair Campbell – think that’s the picture of a man about to grill Campbell on dodgy goings-on in Whitehall during the Blair years?

It always seemed that Smyth’s guests were drawn from a very small circle, and the show was a sort of dry dinner party held ten hours before its natural time. There was never any danger of real world experience breaking in; it was for people who inhabit that awful Irish Bermuda triangle whose points are the Shelbourne Bar, Paddy Guilbaud’s and Dáil Éireann, and for those elect alone.

But even that has now proven too much. Sam Smyth, a man who does so very little to rattle cages, has found that even a little can finish a man.

It all goes back to 1997 and Smyth’s role in breaking the story that lead to the Moriarty Tribunal. Smyth got a lot of praise for his work as an investigative journalist, but the reality is someone picked up the phone and spilled the beans to start the ball rolling in the first place.

If that phone call hadn’t been made, just how hard would the awarding of the Esat license have been investigated by the Irish media? About as hard as the awarding of the drilling rights to Shell in Rossport, or of planning permission for three hundred house estates outside villages with a population of 150, not counting the idiot.

Maybe Ireland is too small to have a functioning media. Everybody gets to know everybody else very quickly, and it’s hard to be objective about people with whom you socialize. There are so few media outlets, it’s very easy for the powerful to blackball someone and put them out of a job. Investigative journalism of the Woodward and Bernstein school is cripplingly expensive. And of course, like any job, youthful enthusiasm wanes and it becomes easier to go through the motions after time.

The problem is that if Ireland is too small to have a functioning media it is also too small to have an independent government. This cannot be emphasized enough.

It is impossible for the people to make informed decisions about who governs them unless there is a mechanism by which the people can inform themselves about the alternatives. That ability to make informed decisions is now under its greatest threat since independence. What can be done?

The Government talks a lot of hot air about press freedom but the reality is no Government wants a free press. Governments want to control news, so the existence of press barons is in their interest. Once the baron is on board, the rest will follow – vide Blair’s courting of Rupert Murdoch across the Irish sea.

It’s up to the people to demand what the powerful will not give. Right now Smyth is doomed. They’ve put a fork in him, and they’re going to replace his cuddly beltway chats with a PR consultant who likes to talk about motor cars that people up to their snouts in negative equity can’t afford.

But there are still journalists of influence and repute who can challenge for press freedom. Wouldn’t it be great if Matt Cooper and George Hook used their drivetime radio shows tomorrow to explain the importance of a free press to their listenership, and just how vital a free press is to a democracy? Wouldn’t that be so much better than just taking a shilling? An Spailpín is looking forward to seeing people taking stands and putting their money where their mouths are.

I am Sam Smyth. And so are you. Don’t let them keep us in the dark. Don’t let them.

The Moriarty Report: The Most Important Irish Political Document Since the Treaty

Yesterday’s publication of the Moriarty Tribunal report was a red letter day in the history of state. An Spailpín suspects that its publication will be like Bishop Casey’s flight in 1992; although momentous at the time, history now sees it as even more so; nothing less than the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Nothing was ever the same again after Bishop Casey’s fall, and neither shall it be after the publication of Moriarty. Whether the repercussions will be good or bad is up to ourselves; if we react quickly we can still save the country. If not…

What is the Significance of the Moriarty Report?
It is this: the case is now proven that corruption in Irish public life is by no means exclusive to one political party. The very institutions of the state are set up as such that corruption is the path of least resistance and the route to quickest results.

A whisper here, an introduction there. A phone call on a Sunday morning. A round of golf. A day at the races. Great things discussed. We could do wonders, if only. Is that all that’s holding you up? Leave it with me; I’ll see what I can do. We’ll never forget you; we’ll remember you in Paradise. Here’s something for your trouble.

None of the nods and the winks mean much in themselves. Together, they’re red rotten and stink to high Heaven. They mean that merit doesn’t win out, but that the Golden Circle shines brightly and eternally.

Why is This So Bad?
It’s bad because we’re up to our eyes in debt and are currently on our two knees before the rest of Europe giving them the poor mouth about our debt. And we’re giving them the poor mouth while paying our public servants above the European average across the board. These same public servants who are bypassed by sweetheart deals worth billions to vested interests.

Why are we paying the public servants so much again? To do what? What is the point? What results are you getting for all that money that you say you haven’t got? When the Germans ask why we don’t regulate our own affairs and save money that way, how will we reply?

What Can We Do?
We must change the way the country is governed. Changing the way the country is governed is not wishy-washy old blather about doing away with the Seanad, which is like taking off the corner-forward when you’re getting hammered in a game of football. The problems arise long before it gets up to the men inside. If people aren’t talking specifics, and coming out with a lot hot air about “real change now” now, as expertly skewered here, forget them.

An Spailpín would suggest a root and branch reform of local government. Do away with county councils, and use either provincial or super-constituency based regional areas for local government issues. Having the bins collected doesn’t require a meeting of the Jedi high council.

Reform the libel laws, so the press may operate freely. Reform the press ownership laws, so that all are held equally open to account. Punish those who abuse press freedoms; freedom of speech is too precious to let it be abused.

End the multi-seat constituencies, thus lessening the localism and clientelism in Irish politics (politics will always be local, but it need not be outrageously so). Pass new laws where those seeking to peddle political power and favours are prosecuted enthusiastically and punished severely. The only way to clear up a mess is to spare neither brush, bleach nor elbow grease. It’s time to get serious.

What If We Don’t Get Serious?
You’d think the worst case option would be that we would be no worse off, but we would be. The debt is the issue. Not just Irish debt, but the fissures that have opened all across the Eurozone as part of the global financial crisis.

The Euro was a German idea, and the Germans are now beginning to realise that maybe Europe wasn’t ready to be German in how they regulate their money. So, being realists and practical and so very, very German, they will set about seeing how to deal with that. And they will do it without hand-wringing or calling Joe Duffy or wondering why people don’t take to the streets. They’ll just get on with it, and leave sentiment far behind.

A two-tier Europe is the obvious solution. The countries who can be trusted to balance their books move ahead. The countries who are more inclined towards cheating and playing fast ones and being equally mendacious and dumb will get pushed slowly, slowly to the edge. And if they fall off, what harm? The contagion has already been limited, and the positive contribution was slight. The project moves on without them.

Are Our Politicians Capable of Seeing How Bad the Crisis Is?
The TG4 debate was seen as one of the high points of the election. An Spailpín found it depressing, and for this reason: when the leaders debated the Fine Gael proposal about the future of the language as a Leaving Cert subject, the debate was reduced to whether or not landladies in the Gaeltacht would lose income.

This is Irish politics. No vision. No big picture thinking. Irish is an important issue, as it has to do with the national identity and our very claims for being an independent nation in the first place. And instead it’s twisted, like all things are twisted, into an exercise in squeezing out another thirty or forty votes. The politicians dish out this rubbish, the nation laps it up and so the whole rigmarole goes on.

Not any more. Europe is watching, wondering when they’re getting their money back, and if the Irish are actually capable of self-governance at all. The Government, and the Irish political system’s reaction to Moriarty, which makes the craven reality of Irish politics clear, is the biggest decision facing an Irish government since Independence.

It’s up to us to decide if the country will turn a corner and be relied on to act responsibly in our public life, or are we to be feckless and hopeless poor (with a filthy rich elite of 5-8% of country – our own gentry, as Breandán Ó hEithir put it) for ever?

This is our choice. We are still a sovereign people, who still govern ourselves and can decided how we can to be governed. What are we going to do?

Political Reform now. And may God take pity on Ireland.