The DOBlog

…just not the way they’d want

RTE News have THIS. Apparently Bertie got a bit garralous with Vincent Browne at the manifesto press conference. Spin handlers bungled a bit when Browne, apparently, was initially stopped by FF handlers from asking questions, which allowed him the opportunity to refer back to the good old days of The Squire Haughey.

Bertie then seems to have flipped a bit:

‘This has nothing to do with the tribunal’, Mr Ahern responded. ‘I allocated my money for uses and I’m entitled to do that. I earned the money [my emphasis].’

He added: ‘Are you questioning that I shouldn’t be allowed to use money?’

Hang on a second… Mr Ahern has just said in front of the media that the money that was paid to his then partner by a business man who he was renting a house from which he has claimed was a “stamp duty” issue and was related to work his partner had done to “facilitate” renovations and refurbishments to the house is now money that he earned.

What exactly did he earn it for?

Over on DublinOpinion.com there have been a few good posts about Bertie’s particular version of events. When the phrase “the Chewbacca defence” is used to describe your explanation, you know you’ve got problems…

Bloody hell Baldrick… I smell a crisis brewing - send for Zapp Brannigan!!

Update from McGarr Solicitors

McGarr Solicitors have just posted an update on the Constitutional challenge to the Electoral boundaries. The case, which was to be heard today, has been adjourned on request of the Defendants. The case is now to belisted for mention again next Tuesday (8th May).

Perhaps I am overly cynical and maybe I’m jumping at shadows but I do find it an interesting co-incidence that the Defendants sought the adjourning of this case from the day that Fianna Fail were launching their election manifesto.

Perhaps I am seeing ill motive in otherwise innocent action given that this adjourment coincides with a week in which the Government parties have been on the back foot and have seen headline after headline tumbling out that make important things like winning an election tricky.

Certainly it would have made life tricky for Government TDs to focus on the manifesto soundbites on the evening news if all the journos wanted to talk about was a court case about whether they had dropped the ball on protecting democracy.

Those constituencies that are under represented based on the Census figures should consider their own version of ‘Rock the Vote’ to the tune of the classic Dire Straits track “Money for Nothing”…

Now that I think of it, that song is eminently appropriate given the lack of clarity about the Taoiseach’s financial affairs… which may indeed be perfectly legitmate and above board. He’s just not doing a good job of convincing people that that is the case.

Stamp Duty

Fianna Fail will be announcing today that they will be the abolition of stamp duty for first time buyers and the removal of any ceiling on the value of the property being bought.

According to the Irish Examiner

Senior Fianna Fáil strategists hope that this extraordinary change on stamp duty will help shore up support for the party after a terrible first four days of the campaign.

They also hope it will draw a line under the controversy surrounding the payment of £30,000 sterling in the 1990s to the Taoiseach’s former partner Celia Larkin, by a Manchester businessman whose house they were renting at the time.

….so, to distract people from what type of stamp duty resulted in Celia Larkin receiving £30k sterling from Bertie’s landlord the strategic planners have lumped for a manifesto policy that will put stamp duty full square in the headlines for a day or two.

The fact that the abolition would be backdated to the 30th of April is puported to be a measure to ‘remove uncertainty in the market’.

This is classic Zapp Brannigan politics. FF have for months resisted proposals to amend the Stamp Duty regime. They’ve postponed the problem until it became a crisis and, lo and behold, the solution arrives in the form of a bribe to the electorate that will cost (according to the Examiner) “several hundred million euros per annum”.

Given that (as IrishElection.com points out in detail in a manner that reminds me of the end of “The Usual Suspects”) FF has consistently and dogmatically resisted any call to change the stamp duty regime on the grounds that it would:

• Cost 1000s of jobs
• Likely as not have no real effect with the money going to developers instead
• Only amount to auction politics, which FF wouldn’t do

this represents a U-Turn on a staggering scale. A bit like a famous Danish beer, Fianna Fail don’t do auction politics. But if they did it’d be the best auction politics in the world. And just like said beer, too much quaffing from that trough will have you waking up with a massive headache feeling wretched and wondering what the hell you thought you were doing the night before.

Irish Elections rightly ask

Why was this not included in Fianna Fail’s Economic Policy document last week or yesterday?

To echo Minister Cowen’s own challenge to Fine Gael’s Manifesto - how has this been costed in?
What happens if there shortfall in growth forecasts? Will first time buyers be given a choice between their stamp-duty free homes or gardaí to police the estate or nurses to work in the local hospital, which may or may not get built because there might not be enough money for a hospital and a primary school.

If it looks too good to be true it probably is. On Morning Ireland this morning George Lee’s view is that the measure would cause property prices to rise rather than plateau which will not address the underlying economic issue of affordability of housing for first time buyers.

Hot on the heels of nurses and coppers, it’s the Prison Officers!!

The Prison Officer’s Association is having it’s conference from today in sunny Sligo.

Apparently their members are a bit peeved at the Minister for Justice seeking accountability from the prison officers one or some of whom, he claimed, must have been complicit in smuggling in the phone used to ring a national radio programme.

They’ve pointed out that due to cuts in staff numbers on prison landings overall security is down 20% and that while Sunday visits have been permitted for some criminals no extra staff have been rostered to cover these visits allowing contraband and phones to be smuggled in.

Remind me again who is responsible for staffing numbers, resources and policies in the Prison Service?

Could it be the same person who jumped on the bait of the ‘blue flue’ (which had not been mentioned by the GRA) and made the possibility of a ‘blue flu’ an election sound bite?

FF to announce Stamp Duty guffology in their manifesto later today.

The popping sound you hear is a spin doctor trying to work out how to distract the media from spotting the overlap between stamp duty in the normal sense and stamp duty in the sense in which a certain £30k was stamp duty.

I was thinking of giving this spin review a rest as there is a risk of my posts becoming unbalanced (or perhaps moreso) - after all the news doesn’t carry as much ill wind for the Opposition as they can just point across the street at the incumbents and say “It’s all their fault”. Also I can’t keep up with the range of issues that might bite the incubments in the backside at the moment, from the Nurses to the unfolding car crash that is the handling of the Tara find to the sniffles from the GRA conference today. The track record of Zapp Brannigan, the ethical flip-flopping and seeming evasiveness of the Taoiseach, and an apparent mind/body swap accident in PD Headquarters which resulted in Mary Harney’s face appearing on a press release from “The Leader” (currently Mr. McDowell) fills me with little hope that things will get any better in the headlines over the coming days.

The balanced thing to say is that many of the issues, from the Nurses to the Gardai to the outbreak of an MRSA-related rash in neo-natal wards in some hospitals will all face the current Opposition if they wind up being the alternative government. The Tara/Skryne Valley issue can’t be swept back under the sods of Meath - it will need to be dealt with. Hospital infections too won’t go away on their own (apparently you need ointment or summat).

What will go away is the seeming ethical vacuum that exists that allows decisions to be taken that disenfranchise voters by reason of geography (and it is not just students, despite what certain letter writers in today’s Irish Times seem to think) and that allows pursuit of spin and polish to override the responsibilities of office. In SpiderMan, Peter Parker’s uncle tells him that “with great power comes great responsiblity”. Since yesterday’s “Cell-Phone” incident the Minister for Justice has been pushing the line that someone needs to take personal accountability.

In a few hours the High Court will rule on whether the electoral boundaries that we will be voting in this time around are even Constitutional. This was a trainwreck that was seen coming in September last year but was ignored or long fingered until the last possible moment by the relevant Minister. I say ignored or long fingered as the alternative - a CONCIOUS DECISION not to have a review of electoral constituencies would suggest a conspiracy to unbalance our system of STV-PR.

Martin Cullen took some personal accountability. I never thought I’d say this but he has gone up in my estimation. The evasiveness of Bertie, the ‘kick arse and chew gum’ arrogance of McDowell and the antics of our resident Zapp Brannigan crisis manager in Environment suggest an otherwise general and widespread inability or unwillingness from other Ministers to walk the walk and likewise take some personal accountability.

So as citizens we need to take some personal accountability. Ultimately we get the government we deserve, based on who we vote for and whether we vote at all. If you want to return the Zapp Brannigans of Irish Politics to power for another 5 years then either vote for them or stay home and hide behind the couch. In either event you will get what you deserve in terms of political leadership. On the other hand, if you want to give the alternative a chance then vote… staying at home hiding behind the couch is not an option!

Don’t be taken in by the Campaign spin. Look at the issues objectively. More importantly in my view look at the quality of leadership… ask yourself if the leadership culture espoused is one that is likely to “drive out fear” so that people can suggest and promote change and improvement.

And well done Martin Cullen. I won’t vote for you, but I might shake your hand (as long as you retain the hindsight and humility that let you see what an arse was made of electronic voting).

OK then… so I’ve pointed out that many of the problem headlines are not the sole challenge of the incumbents. I’ve given Martin C his ‘attaboy’ for balance in coverage and I’ve raised the question of what type of leadership we want…

… right, so that is a bit more opinion and balance on the Blog.