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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eucharistic Congress Dublin 2012

One of the great iconic events of 20th century Irish history was the Eucharistic Congress of 1932. Apart from its religious symbolism it was also a statement by the newly established state about its independence and its commitment to the faith of the majority of the people. The event was echoed to a lesser extent by the Patrician Year in 1961 when the papal legate Cardinal Agagianian came to preside at the celebrations. The other great religious occasion of the 20th century was the Pope’s visit in 1979. All of these events were welcomed and enjoyed by the vast bulk of the citizens of the republic and as a reflection of this the whole apparatus of the state was brought to bear on them to ensure their success. Times have changed.

Whatever about the first two events we now know that the Pope’s 1979 visit took place in the context of huge hypocrisy by the bishops and the clergy. While the Pope lectured Irish families on the dangers of contraception and the importance of chastity two of the most prominent figures of the visit Fr. Michael Cleary and bishop Eamon Casey had made a mockery of Catholic teaching by fathering children. However worse than that we now know that the institutional Church was at the same time colluding in the cover up of most horrendous abuse of Irish children while at the same time attacking and ignoring their parents as they tried to defend them.

Now there is another comparable Catholic celebration on the agenda, the 50th Eucharistic Congress in 2012 in Dublin. It is proposed to hold it in a diocese that has just been pilloried in the Murphy report. Again the Church authorities will need the cooperation of the State to ensure that the event happens and that it is a success. These are the Diocesan authorities who over decades cocked a snoop at the state by hiding criminal child abuse from the Gardaí and those responsible for the welfare of children. In addition at an international level the Vatican, the sponsor of the Eucharistic Congress, refused to cooperate with the investigation of abuse in the Dublin Diocese. They cannot now expect the State to roll out the red carpet for them

The Dublin Diocese is only one of 26. There is no reason to believe that the situation that prevailed there over recent decades was not repeated in the other dioceses. Clearly the Government believe this to be the case because it extended the remit of Murphy to investigate the diocese of Cloyne. It unlikely that this report will be concluded by the time of the Dublin Eucharistic Congress in 2012 so what more remains to be revealed we can only speculate. It will be held against the background of huge and hidden scandal within the Irish Catholic Church. Resources that could be used to uncover this scandal will instead be used to for a celebration.

The last few weeks have seen apologies and calls for resignations but all of this will do little to assuage to hurt of those abused as children and their families. A huge symbolic gesture is required. None was forthcoming from the religious orders in the aftermath of the Ryan report. Apart from Fr. Michael Mernagh’s personal walk of atonement from Cobh to the Pro-Cathedral none seems to be on the cards from the institutional Church or the host of the 2012 Congress, the Dublin Diocese. While there have been expressions of regret and commitment that this will never happen again none has come from the State either. Cancelling the Eucharistic Congress could be one.

Since the Vatican refused to cooperate with the State in investigating the abuses in the Dublin Diocese the state should immediately cancel all cooperation in the staging of the Eucharistic Congress in 2012. This would say to those abused that at least the country of which you are a citizen is on your side and it would also send a strong message to the Church authorities. The Ryan report mentioned an ‘undue deference’ to the Church. Withdrawing the assistance of the State in the organisation of the 2012 events would give concrete expression to the ending of that deference. If it goes ahead neither the President, the Taoiseach, members of the Government or the Oireachtas should attend any of the events.


But the main challenge is to the Church itself and particularly the Dublin Diocese. The Eucharistic Congress, held every four years, is a celebration of the central mystery of the Catholic Church, the Eucharist. For the local Church hosting the celebrations it is a great honour. By the admissions of many of the bishops and the clergy the Irish Catholic Church and as we now know especially the Dublin Diocese are guilty of the most sinful behaviour. It is appropriate that such a local Church should receive such an honour?

If the celebrations are anything on the scale of the Pope’s visit what will that say to those who have been so grievously abused? It is ok, business as usual! As the Papal Legate preaches to the faithful what credibility will his words have in view of the Vatican’s refusal to cooperate with Justice Murphy in her work? If and when it happens will there be prelates and clergy on the altar with all their honours and titles who have been the subject of criticism by the Murphy Report or who will be under investigation as enquiries move on to Cloyne.

The Church has no choice. The bishops and especially the Archbishop of Dublin Dr. Diarmuid Martin must inform the Vatican that Dublin, in the current circumstances, is not a suitable place to host such an important liturgical event. It will not undo the harm done but it might go some way to convincing the sceptical that the expressions of regret are sincere. Apart from that it would do the Catholic Church in Ireland no harm to keep a low profile for the next few years.

So where to now now that Lisbon Treaty has been passed?

Let me declare myself before you read any further. I voted yes to the Lisbon Treaty on both occasions. I was not completely convinced but on balance I was. Most of the arguments made by the No campaigners rolled off me like water off a duck. We were never going to have abortion by the back door. We were never going to be dragged into an unwanted military alliance. The minimum wage was never going to be affected. We were never going to have to adjust our tax rates. I was and still am concerned that the Lisbon Treaty was another missed opportunity to extend democracy within the Union.

Since the Czech President signed the Treaty earlier this week we now we are in a post Lisbon Europe Union and I suspect strongly that the pro Lisbon promoters will now promptly forget some of the serious reservations that were expressed about the Treaty right across Europe. The Treaty was needed to cope with the complexities of an enlarged and possibly even bigger Union. Now it is a done deal the politicians and the Brussels civil servants will be pleased. However Union still has a serious democratic deficit. The Treaty put some mechanisms in place to deal with this but they are difficult to understand and do not go far enough.

All over the Union citizens are concerned that their national identity will be swallowed up by some great amorphous political roller coaster that they will have no control over. I suspect that this was the reason behind the No vote in France and Holland and it is not good enough for the Yes side to say that this was reversed in both countries by subsequent elections. Elections are complex affairs and neither election was fought solely on the issue of Lisbon. The Labour government in the UK baulked at the idea of a referendum even though they had promised one because the suspected, rightly I think, that it would be defeated, just as would have been if put to a the vote in a number of other member states of the Union. If the unease of the people of Europe at the widening and deepening of the Union is ignored then ultimately the whole project will be undermined.

So what is the solution? Well first of all we need to expand the democratic structures of the Union and give the citizens of the Union more of a direct say in the way the Union is run. This does not simply mean giving more power to the European Parliament. A directly elected Parliament as the most powerful institution of the Union would mean the issues and concerns of small countries such as Ireland would be completely submerged in those of the larger countries. The Parliament needs more power but that power needs to be balanced. The Commission needs a complete rethink. Maybe we need each country to elect its Commissioners so that it becomes something more like the US Senate. The Commission bureaucracy needs to be more transparent and answerable although Lisbon goes some way to addressing this. Above all the institutions of the Union need to improve their communications with the ordinary citizens.

Almost as important governments have to start selling the Union to their citizens. No country knows so well as our own how membership of the Union has transformed it for the better. Apart from the economic benefits that have flown from the Union our membership has brought countless social benefits to workers and women, as just two examples. A more open and democratic Union would make this more apparent. Those who campaigned for a Yes vote must not rest on their laurels as they did after the second Nice Treaty referendum. They must now open a debate within all the structures of the Union, the Council, the Commission and the Parliament about how the operation of the Union can make us all feel like European sisters and brothers and not just look to our own narrow national perspective. On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall it is interesting to remember that the Wall was brought down not by the clever machinations of politicians but by the anger and impatience of the people with an inflexible and undemocratic regime. The edifice of the EU is no so solid that it too could be brought down if the powers that be do not take account of the wishes of the people.