Since Martin McGuinness joined the race to the Áras, most of the commentary has surrounded his less than squeaky clean past. This has come from the media, bloggers and also the political arena itself. The latest is Fintan O'Toole's piece in today's Irish Times where he suggests McGuinness could be liable for war crimes.
I'm no fan of McGuinness and certainly won't be voting for him. The farce that is Northern politics has shown him to be fairly inept in an executive role. The actions of Sinn Féin in government up North have shown them to be a fairly right-wing, conservative party, quite at odds with the image they try to portray down here. His following Gerry Adams into southern politics also shows either a contempt for people who have worked hard for SF in the Republic or an effective evacuation of Stormont by the heavy hitters.
However, I strongly object to people relentlessly harping back to McGuinness' past involvement in the IRA from the 70s onwards. Sure, he carried out some pretty awful acts and refused to recognise the authority of the Irish Courts. But when we down south voted 94% in favour of the Good Friday Agreement, we effectively said that we accept that there was a war being fought, but that now we were entering the peace and that we were drawing a line in the sand. Therefore we have to live with our decision and allow those combatants to re-enter normal society and that includes electoral politics.
Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Northern Ireland. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Here comes the Queen
As a republican (small r) I have big problems with the concept of a hereditary head of state. Being lucky enough to be popped out of the right set of loins at the right time seems like a pretty bad way to determine who should be citizen number one. But at the same time, I agree with the concept of sovereignty of nation states, and what rules and regulations other countries use to appoint office holders is their own business. So in that spirit I have to welcome the arrival of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in much the same way I do any other head of state - with much indifference.
What I can't do though, is ignore the huge security operation that has been in place around the city over the last week or so. As an employee of TCD, where the Queen is due to visit later this afternoon, I have spent two days flashing my ID card to get in and out of campus and subjected to bag searches by the Gardaí. Normally I'd get a bit civil libertyish about such things but when you see the reports of the large number of IEDs that have been discovered and defused in the last few days I can appreciate the precautions being taken. The worst thing that could happen would be for a serious incident to occur during the visit.
The Republican (large R) movement are, of course, out in force organising protests and apparently even flag burnings. While I respect their right to protest, the tactics often employed by these groups, involving violence and intimidation are not acceptable. If you live in a civilized society then there is a certain set of standards by which you must abide. And really if you are going to try to burn a flag in front of the world's media, maybe practice at home first to figure out how to do it. Hint - use an accellerant of some sort.
The one thing that I do agree with them on is the timing of the Queen's arrival. The anniversary of the Monaghan/Dublin bombings might not have been the smartest choice especially considering the ongoing belief in some quarters that the British intelligence agencies and/or the RUC were involved in the bombings.
What I can't do though, is ignore the huge security operation that has been in place around the city over the last week or so. As an employee of TCD, where the Queen is due to visit later this afternoon, I have spent two days flashing my ID card to get in and out of campus and subjected to bag searches by the Gardaí. Normally I'd get a bit civil libertyish about such things but when you see the reports of the large number of IEDs that have been discovered and defused in the last few days I can appreciate the precautions being taken. The worst thing that could happen would be for a serious incident to occur during the visit.
The Republican (large R) movement are, of course, out in force organising protests and apparently even flag burnings. While I respect their right to protest, the tactics often employed by these groups, involving violence and intimidation are not acceptable. If you live in a civilized society then there is a certain set of standards by which you must abide. And really if you are going to try to burn a flag in front of the world's media, maybe practice at home first to figure out how to do it. Hint - use an accellerant of some sort.
The one thing that I do agree with them on is the timing of the Queen's arrival. The anniversary of the Monaghan/Dublin bombings might not have been the smartest choice especially considering the ongoing belief in some quarters that the British intelligence agencies and/or the RUC were involved in the bombings.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Fantasy All Ireland Dail
Seeing as the glorious twelfth has just passed, I thought it might be time to have a little cross-border shenanigans. At some point in the future, 10 years or maybe 100 years, the Good Friday agreement will bring about a united Ireland. When that happens we will have an all-island parliament in the Dáil in which parties from North and South will have to come to some sort of arrangement. So I thought I'd have a look at what a combined parliament would look like.
Firstly, the constitution states that there should be a TD for between every 20k and 30k people. With about 4.2M people in the Republic being represented by 166 TDs that gives a rate of just over 25k per TD, right in the middle of the required limits. Given there are about 1.8M people in the 6 counties, on that ratio there would be 72 northern TDs bringing the total Dáil size to 238 and meaning a coalition would need 119 deputies to take power.
Based on the results of the recent general election results in the north, the 72 seats might be distributed something like the following
The next question is with which southern parties would these groups align themselves? Sinn Fein are the most obvious as they would join their existing 4 deputies. SDLP are members of the PES like Labour and so would most likely join them, but at the same time they have had links with FF in the past and would be heavily courted. We'll place the Others (which might include an extra Green) with the existing independents and leave the Alliance as a stand alone unit for now.
That leaves the 31 seats representing the Unionist parties. All three would be somewhat aligned with FG on the christian democrat front, but are actually more hostile to each other than most of the other parties, therefore it is impossible to see a situation where they all join with one southern grouping. Therefore I'm going to add the Con/U to FG and then merge the Traditionals with the DUP and leave them as another new grouping. I'm also assigning the by-elections as 1FG, 1Lab, 1SF. This would leave the Dáil looking as follows
Now to look at the horse-trading to form a coalition. Lets assume that FF and FG will still avoid each other and that the DUP will not join with SF (even though they work together in Stormont) but that any other combination is fair game. The simplest option for FF is to rope in Lab and SF and run with a 9 person majority. Alternatively swapping SF for DUP still gives a comfortable majority and has the benefit of being inclusive of the unionist community. FG on the other hand need to cobble together a rainbow of some sort. FG/Lab/SF scrapes in at 119 and so would need to rope in the Greens, Alliance or a smattering of Others to provide stable government. No other combinations get close to the magic figure.
It should be noted, of course, that on current opinion polls, the representation in the South would be drastically different to what is currently in place. Perhaps in another post I'll have a look at how a united Dáil in 2012 would look.
Firstly, the constitution states that there should be a TD for between every 20k and 30k people. With about 4.2M people in the Republic being represented by 166 TDs that gives a rate of just over 25k per TD, right in the middle of the required limits. Given there are about 1.8M people in the 6 counties, on that ratio there would be 72 northern TDs bringing the total Dáil size to 238 and meaning a coalition would need 119 deputies to take power.
Based on the results of the recent general election results in the north, the 72 seats might be distributed something like the following
- Sinn Fein, 25.5%, 19 seats
- DUP, 25%, 18 seats
- SDLP, 16.5%, 12 seats
- Conservatives/Unionists, 15.2%, 11 seats
- Alliance, 6.3%, 4 seats
- Traditional Unionists, 3.9%, 2 seats
- Others, 7.6%, 6 seats
The next question is with which southern parties would these groups align themselves? Sinn Fein are the most obvious as they would join their existing 4 deputies. SDLP are members of the PES like Labour and so would most likely join them, but at the same time they have had links with FF in the past and would be heavily courted. We'll place the Others (which might include an extra Green) with the existing independents and leave the Alliance as a stand alone unit for now.
That leaves the 31 seats representing the Unionist parties. All three would be somewhat aligned with FG on the christian democrat front, but are actually more hostile to each other than most of the other parties, therefore it is impossible to see a situation where they all join with one southern grouping. Therefore I'm going to add the Con/U to FG and then merge the Traditionals with the DUP and leave them as another new grouping. I'm also assigning the by-elections as 1FG, 1Lab, 1SF. This would leave the Dáil looking as follows
- Fianna Fáil - 72
- Fine Gael - 63
- Labour - 32
- Sinn Féin - 24
- DUP/TradU - 20
- Green - 6
- Alliance - 4
- Others - 17
Now to look at the horse-trading to form a coalition. Lets assume that FF and FG will still avoid each other and that the DUP will not join with SF (even though they work together in Stormont) but that any other combination is fair game. The simplest option for FF is to rope in Lab and SF and run with a 9 person majority. Alternatively swapping SF for DUP still gives a comfortable majority and has the benefit of being inclusive of the unionist community. FG on the other hand need to cobble together a rainbow of some sort. FG/Lab/SF scrapes in at 119 and so would need to rope in the Greens, Alliance or a smattering of Others to provide stable government. No other combinations get close to the magic figure.
It should be noted, of course, that on current opinion polls, the representation in the South would be drastically different to what is currently in place. Perhaps in another post I'll have a look at how a united Dáil in 2012 would look.
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