Nobody now needs to be reminded that money for public services is scarce and wherever public money is spent it is crucial that we get value for money. We also need to do everything we have to preserve jobs and create jobs.
If these two principles are applied to the decision of Dublin City Council to continue with the proposed incinerator in Ringsend then it clearly would be abandoned or seriously scaled down. Much of the coverage of this issue has been about the dispute between the Minister John Gormley and Dublin City Council officials and as a consequence many of the real issues have been lost.
Minister Gormley has been accused of being a NIMBY and of pursuing his own Green agenda in the face of a reasonable solution to Dublin’s waste problem. Recent RTE coverage of the issue on RTE focused on the fact that the City Council had the opportunity to break the contract but with little account of why the contract should be broken. In all of this many of the facts about the operation of this incinerator are being lost.
This project was initiated fourteen years ago and has so far cost €60 million (approx). A lot has happened in those fourteen years. What was originally conceived as a neat engineering solution to Dublin’s waste problem has now been overtaken by market forces and new waste re-cycling technology. What might have made sense then makes no sense now.
First of all the incinerator is designed to take 600,000 tons of waste a year. The Dublin region local authorities are committed to providing 320,000 tons of that and it is rumoured that they will pay Covanta €80 per ton. However at the moment they are only generating approximately 220,000 tons of grey bin waste. Even if they start burning what is currently being re-cycled they will have difficulty reaching the 320,000 ton target and as we all get better and better at being less wasteful and at re-cycling the tonnage of feedstock for the incinerator is declining. So to keep the incinerator working to capacity waste will have to be pulled in from all over the midlands and the eastern region and maybe even imported.
Secondly the deal with Covanta, if it goes ahead, will tie the local authorities into a twenty five year contract. If, as can be expected re-cycling technologies get even better over that time, there will be no incentive for us to use them or to invest in developing them. Already in the United States where large incinerators have been built re-cycling has decreased and in London the advice to the Greater London Authority has been not to enter in to long term contracts because improved re-cycling offers a more economic way of disposing of London’s waste. The Report ‘Where there is Muck there is Brass’ states ‘We welcome the statement by the London Waste and Recycling Board that it will not be investing in incineration projects but, focusing on new energy from waste technologies, which may have a lower impact on air quality and C02 emissions’.
So as re-cycling becomes more efficient incineration becomes less economic. Remember for every one job the incinerator will create (apart from the building period) re-cycling creates eleven. Re-cycled materials become the raw material for all kinds of new products: egg cartons, disposable nappies, plastic products, fleeces and even diesel oil and there are already companies using re-cycled material to manufacture and export.
Current re-cycling techniques are amazingly efficient. Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) can sort grey bin waste into metal, wood, fibre etc for reuse and the remaining waste, solid recoverable fuel or SRF, can be used for incineration. With more efficient systems the level of SRF will decline. The proposed incinerator is a monster that will suck in hundreds of thousands of tons waste and discourage not only re-cycling but also research into more efficient re-cycling methods. It will also put those new businesses that see waste as a raw material out of business as it will deprive them of their source of raw material.
The Ringsend Incinerator is not a local issue. It has the potential to be a huge waste of tax payer’s money and put in serious jeopardy the whole of the recycling industry nationally and thus thousands of jobs. A smart economy is not just about electronics it is also about developing new technologies that can sustain us and bring in foreign investment. We have huge potential to be world leaders in the development of some of those green re-cycling technologies. With a monster incinerator in Ringsend that potential will literally go up in smoke
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Cherishing all the children of the nation equally
One of the great founding myths of this country is the call in the 1916 Proclamation that was echoed in the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil ‘to treat all the children of the nation equally’. It is not special. It has been the aspiration of every democratic republic from Plato through Cicero Tom Paine, our own Wolfe Tone, Davitt and Connolly that in a republic everyone should have equal opportunity. The children of the republic are all its citizens.
I am conscious of this every year when the Leaving Cert results are announced because it is a graphic example of how the national cake is shared out not just in financial terms but in terms of who will benefit from the organisation and structure of society. It will become clear next week when the CAO results are announced that a disproportionate amount of the best third level places will go to a significant but relatively small proportion of the population and thus the ability to maintain your place or advance your place in society.
However this week there were other markers for the kind of society we have become. The much leaked Hunt report on higher education funding has received another airing, softening us up for the re-introduction of third level fees. It seems that if we mention the lack of funding for third level education enough then the only solution will be the re-introduction of fees. Since they were abolished by Niamh Breathnach there has been a constant lobby for their re-introduction. Few are arguing that education is a right not a privilege and if people benefit from it lets tax them appropriately and give that money to third level. This argument gets little traction because those who benefit disproportionately from their third level education would proportionately pay more tax and they and their spokespeople are not having that.
Which brings me to my third point of the week. It think it was Joe Lee who said that the ruling generations of the twenties, thirties, forties and fifties were willing to see whole swathes of Irish people emigrate so that they could maintain their lifestyle and so we see it again. Morning Ireland ran a series on where emigrants might find work instead of railing against the injustice of emigration. On Liveline Joe Duffy’s listeners catalogued a whole series of petty regulation about signage which was effecting small businesses trying to keep people in employment. But then none of the enforcers will be emigrating.
Lastly we heard how in the 60’s the state and religious orders allowed innocent children in orphanages to be used as guineas pigs in vaccine tests. It probably didn’t matter since they were exported through adoption or would inevitably emigrate so they would become someone else’s problem.
I have a good idea now what the inheritors of independent Ireland meant when they shouted ‘Up the republic’ and it was not a cry to treat all the children of the nation equally. But let us now in this time of economic crisis reclaim those republican ideals. Encourage our young people to stay and give them the best education money can buy and say to those who have benefited disproportionately from our economy ‘It is a republic, we all are equal and if you don’t like it maybe you should be the ones to emigrate’
I am conscious of this every year when the Leaving Cert results are announced because it is a graphic example of how the national cake is shared out not just in financial terms but in terms of who will benefit from the organisation and structure of society. It will become clear next week when the CAO results are announced that a disproportionate amount of the best third level places will go to a significant but relatively small proportion of the population and thus the ability to maintain your place or advance your place in society.
However this week there were other markers for the kind of society we have become. The much leaked Hunt report on higher education funding has received another airing, softening us up for the re-introduction of third level fees. It seems that if we mention the lack of funding for third level education enough then the only solution will be the re-introduction of fees. Since they were abolished by Niamh Breathnach there has been a constant lobby for their re-introduction. Few are arguing that education is a right not a privilege and if people benefit from it lets tax them appropriately and give that money to third level. This argument gets little traction because those who benefit disproportionately from their third level education would proportionately pay more tax and they and their spokespeople are not having that.
Which brings me to my third point of the week. It think it was Joe Lee who said that the ruling generations of the twenties, thirties, forties and fifties were willing to see whole swathes of Irish people emigrate so that they could maintain their lifestyle and so we see it again. Morning Ireland ran a series on where emigrants might find work instead of railing against the injustice of emigration. On Liveline Joe Duffy’s listeners catalogued a whole series of petty regulation about signage which was effecting small businesses trying to keep people in employment. But then none of the enforcers will be emigrating.
Lastly we heard how in the 60’s the state and religious orders allowed innocent children in orphanages to be used as guineas pigs in vaccine tests. It probably didn’t matter since they were exported through adoption or would inevitably emigrate so they would become someone else’s problem.
I have a good idea now what the inheritors of independent Ireland meant when they shouted ‘Up the republic’ and it was not a cry to treat all the children of the nation equally. But let us now in this time of economic crisis reclaim those republican ideals. Encourage our young people to stay and give them the best education money can buy and say to those who have benefited disproportionately from our economy ‘It is a republic, we all are equal and if you don’t like it maybe you should be the ones to emigrate’
Friday, June 11, 2010
Labour and the Irish Times MRBI Poll
In the run up to the 1992 general election I almost choked on my food at a dinner party in a very fashionable part of Dublin as some of the other guests sang the praises of Dick Spring. It was not that I did not share their opinions but rather that people like them would never have even in their wildest dreams consider voting for the Labour Party previously. But consider the context. We were emerging from the deep recession f the eighties. Fianna Fáil and the PD’s had slashed and burned their way through the social services of the country for the previous few years. Interest rates were rocketing and it seemed like everyone was at the pin of their collar. Well everyone except Charlie Haughey.
Labour did well at the subsequent election and in retrospect did well in government. Ruairí Quinn was by all accounts perhaps the best minister of Finance the country ever had. However in the 1997 election the Labour Party was once again punished for going into a coalition although in fairness this was partly due to going into government initially with Fianna Fáil which, it is clear now, was a major strategic mistake.
So you can forgive me now the rue smile when I heard the results of the Irish Times poll this morning and I am sure that there were similar smiles amongst the Labour Party themselves. My guess is that those dinner party guests will be once again considering voting Labour although this time they seem to be joined by many more non traditional Labour voters. I just wonder why they are now supporting the Labour Party and what they expect the Labour Party to do.
Eamon Gilmore has been playing a brilliant game and he is supported by some of the most competent people in Irish politics. However if and when they come to government they will have their traditional task of undoing years of Fianna Fáil economic incompetence and this will involve hard and unpopular decisions. Irish voters are intent on punishing Fianna Fáil for decimating the economy, putting tens of thousands on the dole and cutting the incomes of tens of thousands of others but if they want a real transformation in the economy to a more fair and stable society it is not enough to vote Labour out of revenge.
This is where the Labour party must like DeValera look into its heart. The vision of Irish society shared by traditional Labour supporters is not one that can be achieved by a few years in office every generation or so. It is not one that can be achieved by tweaking a few aspects of the economy here and there. It is a long term project. Now that the Labour Party has the ear of a significant section of the Irish electorate it must shrug off the role of a protest party that has been assigned to it when the economy goes skew ways. Eamon Gilmore, Joan Burton et al must begin to talk more loudly about that broad left wing vision of a fairer more equal society. It is all very well, indeed it is correct, to attack the plutocracy and their political puppets that has pillaged the economy for its own benefit for the last thirteen years but should Eamon Gilmore be Taoiseach or Tanáiste after that election and he remains in office for a full five years that plutocracy or more correctly that kleptocracy will still be there. It will take more than five years to dislodge them. That is why it is essential now for the Labour Party to consolidate its support not merely as a tactic for the next election but as a strategy that will take it to the centre of Irish politics.
What should that strategy be? Well part of it is organisation and recruitment in every town, village and suburb in Ireland. That I believe is under way but more importantly it is to articulate that strategic vision of a fairer and more equal Ireland and local organisation is an important way of doing this as there is such an anti left wing bias in the media. It must also mobilise all the 21st century channels of communication social networks, Twitter, blogging etc. It is interesting that in the Irish Times MRBI poll Labour support was not great amongst younger voters. The critical strategy might be to hang on to their courage and finally force that coalition of the two civil war parties but that would mean postponing a crack of government for five years but it could mean within our lifetime a Labour government
The election of Mary Robinson and the Labour Party success of the early 90’s were described as historic but the subsequent years have put them into perspective and they now appear not to be as historic and mould breaking as they first appeared although no one can deny the changes in Irish society that flowed from them but hardly of any of them were economic. There is another once in a life time opportunity for Labour and indeed the broad left to make its mark. It should not be squandered for short term electoral gain.
Labour did well at the subsequent election and in retrospect did well in government. Ruairí Quinn was by all accounts perhaps the best minister of Finance the country ever had. However in the 1997 election the Labour Party was once again punished for going into a coalition although in fairness this was partly due to going into government initially with Fianna Fáil which, it is clear now, was a major strategic mistake.
So you can forgive me now the rue smile when I heard the results of the Irish Times poll this morning and I am sure that there were similar smiles amongst the Labour Party themselves. My guess is that those dinner party guests will be once again considering voting Labour although this time they seem to be joined by many more non traditional Labour voters. I just wonder why they are now supporting the Labour Party and what they expect the Labour Party to do.
Eamon Gilmore has been playing a brilliant game and he is supported by some of the most competent people in Irish politics. However if and when they come to government they will have their traditional task of undoing years of Fianna Fáil economic incompetence and this will involve hard and unpopular decisions. Irish voters are intent on punishing Fianna Fáil for decimating the economy, putting tens of thousands on the dole and cutting the incomes of tens of thousands of others but if they want a real transformation in the economy to a more fair and stable society it is not enough to vote Labour out of revenge.
This is where the Labour party must like DeValera look into its heart. The vision of Irish society shared by traditional Labour supporters is not one that can be achieved by a few years in office every generation or so. It is not one that can be achieved by tweaking a few aspects of the economy here and there. It is a long term project. Now that the Labour Party has the ear of a significant section of the Irish electorate it must shrug off the role of a protest party that has been assigned to it when the economy goes skew ways. Eamon Gilmore, Joan Burton et al must begin to talk more loudly about that broad left wing vision of a fairer more equal society. It is all very well, indeed it is correct, to attack the plutocracy and their political puppets that has pillaged the economy for its own benefit for the last thirteen years but should Eamon Gilmore be Taoiseach or Tanáiste after that election and he remains in office for a full five years that plutocracy or more correctly that kleptocracy will still be there. It will take more than five years to dislodge them. That is why it is essential now for the Labour Party to consolidate its support not merely as a tactic for the next election but as a strategy that will take it to the centre of Irish politics.
What should that strategy be? Well part of it is organisation and recruitment in every town, village and suburb in Ireland. That I believe is under way but more importantly it is to articulate that strategic vision of a fairer and more equal Ireland and local organisation is an important way of doing this as there is such an anti left wing bias in the media. It must also mobilise all the 21st century channels of communication social networks, Twitter, blogging etc. It is interesting that in the Irish Times MRBI poll Labour support was not great amongst younger voters. The critical strategy might be to hang on to their courage and finally force that coalition of the two civil war parties but that would mean postponing a crack of government for five years but it could mean within our lifetime a Labour government
The election of Mary Robinson and the Labour Party success of the early 90’s were described as historic but the subsequent years have put them into perspective and they now appear not to be as historic and mould breaking as they first appeared although no one can deny the changes in Irish society that flowed from them but hardly of any of them were economic. There is another once in a life time opportunity for Labour and indeed the broad left to make its mark. It should not be squandered for short term electoral gain.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Senator Ronan Mullen
On Morning Ireland this morning Senator Ronan Mullen has once again gone on record to defend the indefensible. This morning he also dodged the issue of those within the Church who have defended the Churches actions or refused to take responsibility for their own inaction while attacking the New Times for calling Pope Benedict to account.
Regretfully Senator Mullen has not been very vocal in calling to account those within the Church who acted to cover up and obfuscate clerical child abuse. By his own admission he has commented very little on this. He seems to share that 1950’s view of the Church as a sacrosanct monolith unanswerable and unaccountable to anyone but itself and its hierarchical authorities. In his speech last night Archbishop Martin clearly demonstrated that those days are gone and that those who love and cherish the Church, as I have no doubt Sen. Mullen does, have to face up to the reality of the situation and realise that the game is up and if the Church is to regain any credibility in the future it can only do so by coming clean on its past mistakes.
Archbishop Martin said last night that ‘there are strong forces within the Church that would still prefer if the truth did not emerge’. Senator Mullen has in the past defended the actions of the former Archbishop Desmond Connell when he tried to get a High Court injunction to restrain the current Archbishop from releasing child abuse files. He has been an unrepentant apologist for at least that section of the Church that wishes it could go back to the old days when the media, politicians and society in general were obsequious to the Church and its wishes. He should listen now to Archbishop Martins words and consider what is really in the best interests of the Church
Senator Mullen was elected to the NUI Seanad Panel. He sits as an independent but his track record clearly demonstrates the limits to his independent thinking and NUI voters should remember that at the next Seanad election.
Regretfully Senator Mullen has not been very vocal in calling to account those within the Church who acted to cover up and obfuscate clerical child abuse. By his own admission he has commented very little on this. He seems to share that 1950’s view of the Church as a sacrosanct monolith unanswerable and unaccountable to anyone but itself and its hierarchical authorities. In his speech last night Archbishop Martin clearly demonstrated that those days are gone and that those who love and cherish the Church, as I have no doubt Sen. Mullen does, have to face up to the reality of the situation and realise that the game is up and if the Church is to regain any credibility in the future it can only do so by coming clean on its past mistakes.
Archbishop Martin said last night that ‘there are strong forces within the Church that would still prefer if the truth did not emerge’. Senator Mullen has in the past defended the actions of the former Archbishop Desmond Connell when he tried to get a High Court injunction to restrain the current Archbishop from releasing child abuse files. He has been an unrepentant apologist for at least that section of the Church that wishes it could go back to the old days when the media, politicians and society in general were obsequious to the Church and its wishes. He should listen now to Archbishop Martins words and consider what is really in the best interests of the Church
Senator Mullen was elected to the NUI Seanad Panel. He sits as an independent but his track record clearly demonstrates the limits to his independent thinking and NUI voters should remember that at the next Seanad election.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Shame on you Cardinal Brady
I was born and raised in a period of moral certainty. The arbiter of this certainty was the Church and by the Church I mean the bishops, the priests and the religious orders who ran the schools. Sex was a huge part of the deliberations of what was moral and what was not. Read the literature of the period and you will get an idea of what I mean. However apart from the strictures that were handed down, people themselves had a good innate sense of what was right and what was wrong.
I am reminded of all of this this morning listening to Cardinal Brady and a vox pop of mass goers outside Rathmines Church. The past may be a different country and they may have done things differently there. We may look back now and think that some of those moral certainties were crazy but the past is not so different a country in some respects and some of those moral certainties did not need to be handed down from those on high arbiters. They have been around since we began to seek shelter in caves. One of them is that we do not do harm to children and those who do will be called to account. Cardinal Brady and his supporters amongst the Rathmines mass goers don’t somehow seem to get that one.
And the past was not as different as you might think. I was in the early ‘70’s a young and naïve social working in a south city suburb. A case of sexual exploitation of children came to my attention. I brought it to the attention of my immediate superior, a nun, who immediately brought it to the attention of the Gardaí and the health authorities and the issue was dealt with. Cardinal Brady is saying, as I write this, that sexual abuse of children is ‘complex and difficult’ ‘thirty five years ago we were in a different world and had different standards’. Well we were not and we did not and it is not a complex or difficult problem. Child abuse is a criminal offence. It is now and it was then and everyone with a smidgín of common sense knew and knows that. The standards thirty five years ago were the same. It is just our knowledge now is better.
Shame on you Cardinal Brady. You put the Church and its structures and above all its power base before the physical and moral welfare of innocent children and you are using the most discredited of 20th century defences ‘I was only obeying orders’ and we know who came up with that defence.
I am reminded of all of this this morning listening to Cardinal Brady and a vox pop of mass goers outside Rathmines Church. The past may be a different country and they may have done things differently there. We may look back now and think that some of those moral certainties were crazy but the past is not so different a country in some respects and some of those moral certainties did not need to be handed down from those on high arbiters. They have been around since we began to seek shelter in caves. One of them is that we do not do harm to children and those who do will be called to account. Cardinal Brady and his supporters amongst the Rathmines mass goers don’t somehow seem to get that one.
And the past was not as different as you might think. I was in the early ‘70’s a young and naïve social working in a south city suburb. A case of sexual exploitation of children came to my attention. I brought it to the attention of my immediate superior, a nun, who immediately brought it to the attention of the Gardaí and the health authorities and the issue was dealt with. Cardinal Brady is saying, as I write this, that sexual abuse of children is ‘complex and difficult’ ‘thirty five years ago we were in a different world and had different standards’. Well we were not and we did not and it is not a complex or difficult problem. Child abuse is a criminal offence. It is now and it was then and everyone with a smidgín of common sense knew and knows that. The standards thirty five years ago were the same. It is just our knowledge now is better.
Shame on you Cardinal Brady. You put the Church and its structures and above all its power base before the physical and moral welfare of innocent children and you are using the most discredited of 20th century defences ‘I was only obeying orders’ and we know who came up with that defence.
Monday, February 22, 2010
A Papal Visit in 2012 ?
There were reports over the week-end that the Irish bishops during their meeting with the Pope invited him to visit Ireland in 2012. I presume that this is standard practice for national bishops when they meet the Pope but this invitation has particular significance because in 2012 a Eucharistic Congress will be held in Dublin and I presume that the bishops are encouraging the Pope himself to attend instead of sending a Legate.
This raises a number of issues. The recent visit by the bishops to the Pope was by all accounts a PR shot in the foot. Images of the bishops bending the knee and kissing the Popes ring did not go down well with the general public in the context of the Hierarchy’s response to the Murphy report and the Vatican’s failure to co-operate with Justice Murphy. It was optics but in our media saturated world optics count. Should we host the Eucharistic Congress 2012 we can expect an avalanche of such images. Without serious action by the bishops and the religious orders to conciliate the victims of clerical abuse and their families the great tableau of a Eucharistic Congress will just rub salt into their wounds.
In the aftermath of the Rome meeting Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said that the constant expressions of regret and sorrow by the Vatican and the bishops were beginning to ring hollow, so many of them have been made. He is right. The time has come for the Church both here in Ireland and in HQ in Rome to make a significant gesture of penance and reconciliation to those victims of clerical abuse. Cancelling the Eucharistic Congress would be one such powerful gesture.
Should the Church continue in its cavalier attitude to the victims of clerical abuse the Eucharistic Congress will not be a celebration of the central mystery of the Roman Catholic faith but a divisive indication of the Church’s intention to continue with business as usual. Can we really expect the victims of clerical abuse and their supporters to remain silent while the country is filled with foreign bishops and media? We had enough of culture wars in the 80’s let us not embark on another one. The Bishop of Galway said last week that there is a need for healing. There sure is. Cancelling the Eucharistic Congress as an expression of penitence would contribute to that healing and avoid an unseemly horde of embarrassing counter events.
However from the Church’s own point of view the Congress should not go ahead. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has already said that the Church in Ireland is a sinful Church. Is it appropriate then that such a Church should be rewarded by being allowed to host one of the most important events in the Church’s calendar? Forgiveness of sin requires an act of penance. There is one available to the Church. It just requires an act of will to grasp it.
If the Pope has any sense he will refuse the invitation for 2012 and tell the Irish Church that the Eucharistic Congress is being re-located.
This raises a number of issues. The recent visit by the bishops to the Pope was by all accounts a PR shot in the foot. Images of the bishops bending the knee and kissing the Popes ring did not go down well with the general public in the context of the Hierarchy’s response to the Murphy report and the Vatican’s failure to co-operate with Justice Murphy. It was optics but in our media saturated world optics count. Should we host the Eucharistic Congress 2012 we can expect an avalanche of such images. Without serious action by the bishops and the religious orders to conciliate the victims of clerical abuse and their families the great tableau of a Eucharistic Congress will just rub salt into their wounds.
In the aftermath of the Rome meeting Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said that the constant expressions of regret and sorrow by the Vatican and the bishops were beginning to ring hollow, so many of them have been made. He is right. The time has come for the Church both here in Ireland and in HQ in Rome to make a significant gesture of penance and reconciliation to those victims of clerical abuse. Cancelling the Eucharistic Congress would be one such powerful gesture.
Should the Church continue in its cavalier attitude to the victims of clerical abuse the Eucharistic Congress will not be a celebration of the central mystery of the Roman Catholic faith but a divisive indication of the Church’s intention to continue with business as usual. Can we really expect the victims of clerical abuse and their supporters to remain silent while the country is filled with foreign bishops and media? We had enough of culture wars in the 80’s let us not embark on another one. The Bishop of Galway said last week that there is a need for healing. There sure is. Cancelling the Eucharistic Congress as an expression of penitence would contribute to that healing and avoid an unseemly horde of embarrassing counter events.
However from the Church’s own point of view the Congress should not go ahead. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has already said that the Church in Ireland is a sinful Church. Is it appropriate then that such a Church should be rewarded by being allowed to host one of the most important events in the Church’s calendar? Forgiveness of sin requires an act of penance. There is one available to the Church. It just requires an act of will to grasp it.
If the Pope has any sense he will refuse the invitation for 2012 and tell the Irish Church that the Eucharistic Congress is being re-located.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Privacy and freedom of the press
Martin Cullen’s account of the hounding of himself and his family by the press is quite graphic in describing what it is like to be at the centre of a press story. Last week-end one Sunday newspaper published a photograph of the girlfriend of Wayne O’Donoghue who was convicted for the murder of Robert Houlihan. Then Ger Colleran the editor of the Star complained about the Gardaí smuggling in Jean Tracy to the Court to give evidence in the Eamon Lillis murder trail. He claimed it was an attack on freedom of the press. On the basis of what Martin Cullen said we can imagine what it must be like for Wayne O’Donoghue’s girl friend and Jean Tracy two people who were caught up in events not of their making.
One of the key pillars of democracy is freedom of the press and we have been well serviced by the press in Ireland over the last few years despite somewhat draconian libel laws and the propensity of the rich and powerful to run to the high court. However the way some sectors of the press exercise that freedom is questionable and might put in jeopardy in the future the ability of the press to pursue stories of critical national importance. Gratuitous intrusion into the private life of people who are not public figures and whose behaviour has no criminal or public policy implications provides grist to the politician’s mill when they consider the provisions of the forthcoming Privacy Bill.
Taking a picture of a private person caught up, through no actions of their own, in a national story is not an expression of freedom of the press. If freedom of the press is to be defended then it must be exercised with caution so that when we really need it, as in the cases of political corruption over the last few years, then journalists will have complete legal protection to go after those who want to hide their actions from the public gaze.
Whatever judgements politicians make about limits to press intrusion into the privacy of individuals they must not be based on a few errors of judgement by a few journalists. On the other hand journalists must reciprocate by not making unwarranted intrusions into the private lives of people where it has no consequences for illegality or public policy. Selling newspapers and freedom of the press are not incompatable but neither are they the same thing.
One of the key pillars of democracy is freedom of the press and we have been well serviced by the press in Ireland over the last few years despite somewhat draconian libel laws and the propensity of the rich and powerful to run to the high court. However the way some sectors of the press exercise that freedom is questionable and might put in jeopardy in the future the ability of the press to pursue stories of critical national importance. Gratuitous intrusion into the private life of people who are not public figures and whose behaviour has no criminal or public policy implications provides grist to the politician’s mill when they consider the provisions of the forthcoming Privacy Bill.
Taking a picture of a private person caught up, through no actions of their own, in a national story is not an expression of freedom of the press. If freedom of the press is to be defended then it must be exercised with caution so that when we really need it, as in the cases of political corruption over the last few years, then journalists will have complete legal protection to go after those who want to hide their actions from the public gaze.
Whatever judgements politicians make about limits to press intrusion into the privacy of individuals they must not be based on a few errors of judgement by a few journalists. On the other hand journalists must reciprocate by not making unwarranted intrusions into the private lives of people where it has no consequences for illegality or public policy. Selling newspapers and freedom of the press are not incompatable but neither are they the same thing.
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