The Next Anglo-Scale Crisis Will be in Data Protection

Billy Hawkes has his work cut out for him

I've argued for some time that the problem in Ireland is not one of light-touch regulation, but of culture. The failure that led to such catastrophic circumstances was not down to Lehman Brothers, or the Global Meltdown, or Anglo, or the Financial Regulator, but culture. A culture that said 'go on sure you'll be grand,' a culture that basically said take what you can get away with, so long as you don't get caught, a culture that told politicians - jovially - that the only thing, the *only* thing they had to protect was their seat.  That caused an abdication of leadership and responsibility, an absence of ownership, and a complete abandonment of the principles of the nation. So we are - as they in Leinster House so wearily put it - where we are. The implication of that phrase, of course, is that we do not learn from our mistakes, we forget about the past, and we fix the problem we are faced with rather than contemplating the uncontemplable - that we are fundamentally wrong about all sorts of important stuff that's really hard to fix.

The Liberal Left and the New Religion

Narcissists? We've been heading
in that direction for some time.

In an over-used and most likely incorrectly attributed quotation, when asked what the influence of the French Revolution had been on Western Democracy, the Chinese Foreign Minister replied that is was too soon to tell.  Given the apocryphal nature of the story, and the layers of invention that the Internet places on such stories, we don’t know if Zhou Enlai smiled as he said it.  The most significant shift that happened with the French Revolution – and the Enlightenment generally – was the shift from peoples and tribes to individuals and rights.  The Cartesian fundamental coigito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) had made its way through the corridors of time and consequence from arcane academic existential consideration to politics, and war, and statecraft.  If Millenials are accused of being all about me, me and me on the cover of Time Magazine, it’s only because we've been heading that way for several hundred years.

Why Ireland Needs Drones

Drones come in all shapes and sizes, not just Predators
with sidewinders attached.

Drones have got something of a bad press recently, what with all of the extra-judicial killings and what not, and Human Rights Watch, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, and all sort of other folks getting concerned about the automation of lethal force.  Much of the focus is on the US, but it should be noted that there are dozens of countries deploying their own drones now, and not just for pre-emptive strikes on irksome alleged terrorists outside state borders.

More Unbelievable Truths from the CRC?

Ham Goulding's attempt to clear the air in a series of interviews at the weekend, in an attempt to pour water on the raging fire of the Central Remedial Clinc scandal, appears to have failed.  The Public Accounts Committee still wants them all in, and Mr McGuinness will have his show.  Goulding claimed that the settlement was an attempt to save money, because keeping Kiely on as Chief Executive would have cost €2.1m over six years.

Let's do the math.  First, the settlement of €740k means that the net saving would have only been €1.36m over the six years, which Goulding acknowledges.  However, they then immediately agreed to appoint Brian Conlon on a salary of €125k (later reduced under pressure from the HSE).  That's a total of at least €750,000 over six years, which leaves the benefit at €610,000 at most.  Therefore, adopting Goulding's logic, they paid €740k in order to save €610k.  This is despite the fact that one board member went so far as to have it noted in the minutes her reluctance to agree to the departure of Mr Kiely - being such a fine Chief Executive - but for it appeared that he was resolved to leave.  Go figure.

NAMA: Rebadging Failure as Success

Photo Credit: Google Images

Fintan O'Toole calls out the economic failure in Ireland in today's Irish Times (and, incidentally, in The New York Times also) and in particular those politicians who hold the country up as an example to others. The debt has soared, public services have been slashed, and quality of life has deteriorated for all but those who have emigrated in the last five years. Things are admittedly pretty awful, and made worse by rich men in expensive suits praising the country for its prudence and fortitude.

NAMA was actually designed to do this.  Its model works thus: you have a property worth $50m, for which a developer has a loan of $100m, you pay the bank $20 for the loan, re-capitalise the bank for the $80m shortfall (i.e. repay the German inter-bank lender) through off-books sovereign debt, then sell the property for $30m, making (ahem) a $10m 'profit'. So NAMA then is a success, because it drove a profit from its loan book. The State, meanwhile, is crippled.

Anyone can be successful if they are allowed to define the rules for success themselves.  Small minds are destroying this place.

A No-Vision Rest Home for No-Vision Politicians: The Conservative Reform Alliance

Didn't get the memo then?

In Susan Neiman's 2008 Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, there is at least some part of the answer to why we are all so cynical these days.  Neiman talks of things like reason and hope - not incompatible, it seems - and says of aspiration that so long as it is limited by the actual, no other idea has a chance.  Good bedtime reading for Lucinda Creighton, one suspects.

Her fall from high office has been well documented, losing the whip on the abortion bill, and subsequently forming the Reform Alliance, an entity not quite a political party, but registered for fundraising and populated by politicians.  Today, it emerged that several high profile independent TDs would not be supporting the breakaway movement, dealing a significant blow to the Alliance, and seriously undermining any ambitions it may have had to real power. Which is a shame.

Ireland: Land of the Blind

Just when you think it really can't get any worse.

It's bad enough that we pushed the national debt towards €200m, or roughly four times what it costs to run the country every year.  Furthermore, we've destroyed the construction industry, crippled the property market, and plunged anyone who bought a house in the last ten years into negative equity.  We're cutting our way to growth, which seems insane, insisting on paying all of our debts - notwithstanding the systemic flaws in the Euro structure that have been at the heart of Ireland's inability to recover.  We have acceded to the decimation of our population and its future through youth emigration, of a type that we have never seen before - it's not financial, and these ones don't intend on coming back.  This is no mere release valve for unemployment with some of them going because they're young, free, and up for a bit of an adventure.  It's not a lifestyle choice, it's a life choice.

Seanad Result: An Irish Identity Crisis

There are those who would argue that the Seanad result is a vote against the government, a protest vote. Others say that it is a vote in favour of reform. I think it runs deeper than that, however. What we are seeing in this country is a pattern of negativity and absence in our politics that has become progressively worse over the last ten years.

The problem is that there is no vision, no direction being articulated by our elites.  Elites have never been a problem in this country, we are a people seemingly happy to subjugate ourselves before our betters, whether that's the British, the Catholic Church, or Fianna Fáil, though each of them found that there was a limit to our patience.  Each represented a kind of vision, an identity, a belief that we could attach ourselves to.  With the British, we were a part of Empire; with the Church, we were a Catholic Leader country, with education, healthcare and the entirety of our social fabric tied up in the Church; and with Fianna Fáil it was the political extension of the late nineteenth century Gaelic Revival, a kind of Irish exceptionalism, we saints and scholars, a cult of the extraordinary that was almost fascist in its design.

Retaining the Seanad: Vote No!

I was unsure about this referendum.  The Seanad has long been a bit of a wasted opportunity.  A landing spot for failed Dáil candidates; Bertie's appointment of Eoghan Harris; the famous 'weekend Senators' who get appointed for a couple of days at the end of a term in order to get past-members' parking rights and all that other bullshit.  Generally speaking it is a failed institution, and in truth we won't miss much if and when it's gone.

I'm voting to retain the Seanad.  Why?  Because of the cynical, populist, and arrogant way in which the Government has decided to execute its campaign.  This isn't reform, it changes nothing.  The problem is with the concentration of power, and this does nothing to address that.  This is nothing to do with saving money - no permanent jobs will go, and no buildings will go.  Yet the Government has said that this is why they are doing it, and, according to the Irish Times poll on Monday, that is why most people are in favour of abolition. Kenny and Fine Gael may have trumpeted the abolition of the Seanad loudly as a policy platform in the run up to the election, but they never once mentioned cost.

The abject lack of reform in the Dáil is what is being swept under the carpet here.  Once this has been put to bed, electoral and Dáil reform will be off the agenda for the remainder of the Dáil term.  The whip system will remain.  The electoral system will remain the same.  The excoriation of the Dáil as a relevant chamber will persist.  The concentration of power in the executive, in the top of the executive, will endure.  The government has succeeded in creating an effective dictatorship, without checks and balances, without accountability, and doomed to repeat the same mistakes that we made the night of the Bank Guarantee.  The government is too close to see it, and the rest of us are either blind or disinterested.  Sure, we have elections, and we can change who the dictator is.  But the song remains the same.  

Dealing with the Data Protection Commissioner

My case went in an official 'file' in a 'filing cabinet' :)

So, I started getting these funky emails from a job coaching crowd called Jobcare.  Unsolicited, unwanted.  I told them to stop.  They didn't.  Then, they started sending me emails with all the other email recipients' email addresses - including mine - exposed.  I told them to stop, then I copied everyone and told them to stop, saying this was spam.  They didn't.  So I told them they could deal with the data protection commissioner, who I alerted.  Here's what happened:

Fine Gael and The Will To Power

Abolishing the Seanad is an intellectually lazy and
populist move that will compound our system's failure

I shared a plane journey to New York yesterday with a man working with NGOs, in the area of global co-ordination.  We talked about how difficult it was to control egos where righteousness levels seem to know no limit.  "People get into this," he said, "with the best of intentions - then they forget about why they're there, they forget about the children, and the starving, and the organisation becomes an end in itself.  You can get a lot done when you remind them about why they're there."

Jail Politicians who Drink before they Vote

Tom Barry: Drinking and Voting

Tom Barry has admitted that he had been drinking in the Dáil bar the night of the abortion debate, when, as the Guardian describes it, he 'grotesquely pull[ed] a woman colleague on to his lap.'  Many were complaining that the Dáil was debating the issue until 5am, and still more complained that the bar had remained open. Now, some representatives - including Professor John Crown who called for zero alcohol in the Dáil and breathalyser testing to be sure.

Last Thursday night's votes were extremely important to many people.  While your correspondent is of a view that it was mostly inconsequential, many people were of a view that the votes had implications for the lives of thousands of defenseless human beings, and still more were of the view that they had serious implications for the personal freedoms and health of women in this country.

Wallabies vs Lions Player Ratings; Team for Second Test

One swallow doth not a summer make - North scored an
undeniably classy try, but the rest of his game left something
to be desired.

We've referenced rugby in this parish in times past, and notwithstanding the vociferous accusations of inconsistency that will inevitably emanate from this contribution, we here at TSWI feel compelled to offer a view on today's First Test from Brisbane, where the Irish and British Lions stole a series lead from a battered and brave Wallaby side.  Player ratings and next week's team prediction after the fold.

Irish Times Campaigning for Pro-Choice Again?

The Irish Times has a massively misleading headline on the website this evening, I'm disappointed in them.  The headline reads "POLL SUGGESTS OVERWHELMING SUPPORT FOR PROPOSED ABORTION REFERENDUM." In the piece, it explains that: "Asked if they were for or against the heads of the Bill to legislate for the Supreme Court X judgment of 1992 permitting abortion where a mother’s life is in danger, 75 per cent said Yes, 14 per cent said No and 11 per cent had no opinion."  In the second last paragraph, however, it adds "Asked if abortion should be allowed where a woman is threatening suicide 52 per cent said Yes, 29 per cent said No and 19 per cent had no opinion." 

The Real Question the NSA Needs to Answer

The tech companies are begging the NSA to let them say how many requests they've acceded to, and my bet is that they'll concede.  It doesn't really matter what the number is, it will be tiny relative to the number of users, and it will seem insignificant to most law abiding, voting citizens.  It seems to me that the plan is that at that stage it will all go away. However, they're answering the wrong question, a favourite tactic of politicians: if cornered, and asked a question you don't want to answer, answer a different question. 

PRISM: Big Data and Pre-Crime

Fantastic Universe, February 1956:
Pride of my Collection

In February 1956, the Science Fiction magazine Fantastic Universe published a short story from a young writer called Philip K Dick, called The Minority Report.  Stephen Spielberg made a fine movie of the story in 2002, the latest in a series of Dick's stories to be converted to the screen, including Blade Runner and Total Recall.  Dick's account of bureaucrats predicting when people were likely to commit crimes - and arresting them before they did - was extraordinarily prescient.

Shatter's Folly

The Minister has some work to do in making himself popular

The Minister for Justice and Defence Alan Shatter is being accused of an abuse of office for digging up some Garda dirt on a political opponent in order to undermine him during a television debate.  Government Ministers Joan Burton, Richard Bruton and Brian Hayes have been out defending the Justice Minister, but whatever the outcome, they are going to be privately acknowledging that this incident has begun to damage an already poor public view of the administration. But more on the politics later. This is not the first time Minister Shatter has brought the dignity of the office into question.

Another Idea to Boost the Economy that Won't Be Done

Mrs Merkel's Runabout: the BMW 320d SE Touring

Cars in Ireland are some of the most expensive in Europe. A BMW 320d SE Touring costs around €43,220k here.  In Germany, the list price is €37,400.  In Spain, €38,900.  In the UK, €35,200 (converted using xe.com) The additional cost is exclusively in taxes, which ultimately seem to make their way back to Germany anyway.  This year, we introduced a new vehicle registration system to accelerate the newness effect.  Back in 1987, the auto industry was delighted when the year of acquisition was stamped on every car; I am awaiting statistics but I do expect them to confirm that car sales rose at a rate higher than the expected rate.

Free Will, Human Rights and Abortion Law in Ireland

Savita Halappanavar: her death has
prompted fierce debate on abortion
legislation in Ireland

The recent tragic case of Savita Halappanavar has re-focused the spotlight in Ireland on our anachronistic abortion laws.  In that case, Ms Halappanavar died from septic shock during a miscarriage, when she was prevented from having a termination despite her having requested on on a number of occasions.  One doctor went so far as to say it was highly likely that she would have survived had she been granted her request for a termination.

Alongside the timeline of these tragic events, the Fine Gael / Labour coalition government on the back of their Programme for Government had agreed to legislate for the X-Case.  In that case, a young girl who had been the victim of rape was deemed to have a right to an abortion if there was "a real and substantial risk" to  her life.  Crucially, that risk included the risk of suicide.  While the government, and the population generally, are of a view that the "real and substantial risk" test was appropriate, the question of suicide was for many a step too far.  Some argued that no one could clinically diagnose such a risk, that it was entirely within the gift of the woman herself to declare such a risk, and therefore such a provision would be wide open to abuse.

The SIPTU Moment: Are We On The Brink of Industrial Armageddon?

Croke Park: Fine Stadium, No Deal.

The rejection of the Croke Park agreement, coming as it does the week of Margaret Thatcher's death, presents the government with a tremendous opportunity.  Combined with Labour's shattered confidence, here's what could happen now*.

Enda Kenny announces in the Dáil that he has formed an agreement with Micheal Martin (resurgent, forgiven, and hungry to get back into power) to form a Randian Correction Coalition that will over the next two years restore the fortunes of the country.  The alternative would be at least ten more years of pain. Ireland announces a unilateral re-designation of the national debt in its various layers, and enters negotiations with its debtors to formalise those arrangements.