Tomorrow's referendum

So the media moratorium has finally arrived. Tomorrow I get to go to the polling station and vote on the fiscal compact/stability treaty/austerity treaty and I am going to tick the No box on the ballot paper. I have stayed out of this campaign for all sorts of reasons, limiting my contributions to a few tweets here and there and arguments in the pub over a few pints.

It feels strange to have a vote and to not have knocked on a single door. Even during the Presidential, despite moving house and having a 7 month pregnant wife to look after, I managed to get out for a few canvassing sessions. But for the compact I couldn't bring myself to doing it. Canvassing on this topic would either be an exercise in 20 second glib soundbites that are inaccurate at best and false at worst, or require spending half an hour at each house explaining the full consequences of a yes or no vote and discussing the actual text of the treaty.

The problem is that the media coverage of the referendum has also descended into the former. Both sides playing the soundbite and the ad-hominem rather than debating the contents of the treaty and the grand picture of the Eurozone we would like to see in the future. Personally, I am quite in favour of the European project, leaning towards the federalist end of the spectrum. But it needs to be full federalism, not the half way house we currently have. But that seems unlikely to happen, or be proposed by any of the current political leadership across the EU, so we need to find another solution to our current crisis but the Compact and the ESM are not the silver bullet we are all waiting for.

I'm assuming the vote will be carried by about a 60-40 margin and in a year's time we'll be right back in another crisis, with Spain having sucked most of the money out of the ESM. I hope I'm wrong.

Farewell to a comrade

One of the things I like most about being involved in politics is the wide range of people you bump into at meetings, leafleting, canvassing and all those other political activities. Some of them you click with immediately, some take time and effort to get to know. In the latter category I would put Paul Duffy, who passed away last week at the age of 72.

On joining the Rathmines branch many years ago, Paul was one of the first people I got talking to. Little did I know what I was getting in to. After half an hour of discussing JFK and how he redefined the attitude of a generation I was almost fit to leave the venue screaming and never to return. But I realized that behind the slightly odd exterior was a very genuine person with a keen interest in politics.

So I came back the next month and we got talking about music. On discovering that I was involved in choral music he immediately divulged his love for the music and life of Count John McCormack. I was pretty sure I had heard my grandmother wax lyrical about McCormack but she was almost of an era with the man and so couldn't have avoided him. Paul on the other hand had chosen to get into this music and was a member of the McCormack society for many years.

Over the course of several election campaigns I spent many leafleting sessions covering the highways and byways of Dublin 6 with Paul. He seemed to have an unending energy for the granite steps up to the large houses on Kenilworth Square and Grosvenor Road. Once I got into the swing of canvassing, our trips together became rarer, as cold-calling people was not something that Paul particularly enjoyed doing. But even in the depths of the cold, wet winter nights of last year's general election, Paul could be found traipsing around Rathmines covering as many letterboxes as possible for Ruairi and Kevin.

I last met Paul at our branch meeting at the end of March. Despite arriving late (as usual) and upscuttling things as he found a seat and dug out his agenda and minutes, he was in good form. We discussed the Fiscal Compact and the mess the City Council had made of the privatization of the bins. And we discussed JFK and John McCormack as always. He sipped his glass of Guinness after the meeting ended and then headed off home. It was with some shock that I saw the email on Thursday that said he had passed away.

While you could never say that we were close or even friends, Paul was a reliable comrade over many years. I was glad to be able to attend his funeral this morning and pay my respects. The torch has been passed to a new generation of Labour activists in Rathmines, but Paul's contribution to our political efforts and his impact on our lives will not be quickly forgotten.

Labour Conference Review

Following on from my preview of the party conference last weekend, it only seems fair that I now review the proceedings.

Mood of conference

The party gave me quite the schizophrenic vibe over the weekend. There is still a lot of personal support for the front bench, especially Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton. There is also great respect and admiration for the blitz that Ruairi Quinn is carrying out in the Dept of Education. At the same time, people outside the official fold of the PLP such as Pat Nulty were also warmly greeted and were made felt welcome at the event. While I'd be loathe to call it a love-in, it was pretty close to that at times.

On the other hand, there was also an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the role of the party in government. Many of the decisions and policies implemented so far seem to have a far greater blue hue than a red tinge but with the numbers they way they are in the Dail and around the cabinet table that is to be expected. But it still doesn't make it easy for members to remain committed to being in government, especially those that voted against coalition this time last year (I'd be one of them).

Motions

Many of the motions debated were of the mom and apple pie variety. Yes, we're all in favour of jobs and improving the health service. As predicted the Saturday morning TV session was completely stage managed with banal contribution after banal contribution on non-controversial topics just to get the three minutes of fame. I would be much more in favour of some real debate being shown to the few viewers that tune in. Pick some suitably juicy motions on the property taxes, fracking and Corrib gas, 3rd level fees, water charges and leaving government and let rip. At least it would show the public that the party isn't afraid of real debate and difference of opinion.

There were also far too many motions on the agenda. Several sessions were guillotined without even time for a proposer to make a contribution. I think I saw about 15 contributions supporting or opposing motions over the weekend and a majority of them were on the abortion and Vatican motions on Sunday morning. The party needs to come up with a way of reducing the size of the agenda - at times I felt that many motions could have been composited together and many others were merely reaffirming existing policy. Perhaps two motions per constituency or section would be better than the current one per branch, constituency and section.

There was also a lot of attempts to refer controversial motions back to the party executive to avoid a vote by the members. Over the weekend several speeches from the leadership reminded us that we the ordinary members were the party. Well if that is true then the leadership should be willing to accept the democratic decision of the delegates at conference. On two occasions votes to refer had to be shouted down and tellers called for to show to the top table that the members didn't want to follow that course of action. One hopes, but doesn't expect, that the new party chair Colm Keaveney will not follow this railroading at next year's event.

Saturday's Protest

The protest on Saturday certainly added something to the conference. I'm all in favour of protesting and have been on more marches than I care to remember. Having seen various videos of Saturday's protest, and specifically the breaching of the garda cordon to gain access to the plaza outside the conference hall, I would have to say the use of pepper spray seems unjustified. Sure, there were the usual few eejits who insist on wearing their hoods up and putting bandanas over their face but I always think that's more to avoid being recognized by their mothers' than by the authorities. Unless someone gets seriously injured or major damage is done, the Guards will never push for prosecution. But a bit of pushing and shoving, about as violent as the 10 seconds before the ref throws in the ball in Croke Park, should be easily managed by the Gardai without resorting to sprays, water cannon or horse charges (as were used against the USI demo a couple of years ago).

I know that some of the more elderly delegates were quite frightened by the events but one really has to wonder what would have happened had the protest gained access to the hall. I doubt that a riot would have broken out. A bit like the Jehovah's Witnesses, I'd almost be tempted to ask them in for a cuppa. Lets see what words of wisdom beyond "They say cutback, we say fightback" and "No way, we won't pay" they could have added to the debate on increasing income taxes on high earners, banning the sale of any state assets, wealth and asset taxes and demanding clarity on IBRC bonds and promissory notes. I'm pretty sure that there is a lot of common ground between those who were inside the hall and those outside with the flags and banners.

Where next?

So what happens next? Well to be honest not an awful lot. Motions passed will be forgotten, those referred back will sit on a shelf and the government will continue implementing the PFG irrespective of the wishes of the conference delegates. And that's a bit of a shame. The members' forum probably provides a much better way to debate and develop policy so hopefully that process will continue. The party membership will be somewhat split over the upcoming Fiscal Compact referendum so that will keep things interesting for the next 6 weeks or so. But unless something drastic happens I imagine we'll be back to conference in April 2013 debating the same old topics and having an awful lot of beer in some location as yet to be determined.

Labour Conference preview

Tomorrow I head to Galway for the Labour Party Conference. It promises to be an interesting event as it is the first conference I will have attended with Labour being a party of government and also the first conference where Michael D Higgins will not be in attendance and giving a masterclass in oratory.

Friday evening's session covers the administrative tasks and then debate on Communications, Social, Protection and Political Reform. Of these, the most interesting motion is one from Harold's Cross branch (#25) demanding the restoration of the FOI act and ensuring that NAMA comes under its remit. After all of Gavin Sheridan's efforts to get information from NAMA it would be great to see such a move actually happening.

Saturday morning features Education, Health and Jobs. The first two will be covered before 11 when the RTE cameras will start rolling and a stream of councillors and TDs will most likely be lined up to have their 3 minutes of fame. These motions look to have been carefully selected to avoid any controversy as they almost all state support for creating jobs - who could possibly be against that?

The afternoon session is a whole other kettle of fish. The economy takes centre stage and there are over 30 motions up for debate. There are at least a few that I feel I may end up speaking against, mainly to do with the IBRC promissory notes. There will also be motions taken on internal party organization which are often the most entertaining. One that Dublin South East members may be keenly interested in is #112 supporting the abolition of the Candidate Selection Boards which ended up splitting DSE in two for the selection of candidates for the last general election.

After a break for workshops, the conference reconvenes for the Leader's Speech which this year features David Begg from ICTU as the warm up act. How aligned ICTU and the party still are is a matter for some debate so it will be interesting to see if contradictory positions are taken by the speakers on any topic. Leader's Speech is also televised so the body language and positioning of Eamon vis-a-vis other TDs and Senators will show how united or divided the parliamentary party is to the public. The amount of cheering and clapping (or lack thereof) will also been seen as endorsement (or not) of the party's performance in government by the membership.

Conference winds up on Sunday morning for the hangover sufferers with debate on International, Justice and Environmental issues. The DSE motion that was proposed by the Rathmines Branch (#155) will be taken almost at the end of the session. Rathmines' amendment to the abortion motion (#138) is also scheduled for debate on Sunday morning. The local clergy must be up in arms about our defiling of the Sabbath day! Following the singing of the Red Flag, we'll all pack up and head back home content or disgruntled with the weekend's events.

Of course, the most important part of conference is what happens in the bars, restaurants, corridors and nightclubs. It is a great chance to meet other like-minded people, catch up with old friends and comrades and let one's hair down in a vaguely safe environment. But to take a phrase from another part of my life, what happens on tour stays on tour and so those secrets will be taken to the grave.

The household charge

The household charge of €100 was introduced in the last budget as an intermediary step towards a property/council tax being introduced in the coming years. Based on there being about 1.5M houses in Ireland, some of which will be eligible for waivers, the measure will bring in about €100M or so in this year. That is, if everybody pays it and that is looking less and less likely.

What is surprising is the massive campaign against the household charge, while hundreds of other measures that have had a much greater impact (USC, Tax Credits, Social Welfare payments, health and education cuts) have been accepted fairly easily. One of the biggest scams of all was the setting up of NAMA and only about 400 people turned out at the rally against it.

What is even more surprising is that it is the left groups who are objecting most strongly. One of the key ideals of socialism is taxation of assets and wealth rather than labour. So how can people like Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett honestly stand up and say the household charge is bad? Sure, in its current form as a flat charge it is not equitable, but they are arguing against charges on property as a whole. "No tax on the family home" seems to be the mantra. But if most houses in Ireland are family homes then any property tax will not be deemed acceptable to them which flies in the face of socialism.
This is similar to the problem I have with the anti bin-tax campaign. Due to it's "success" Dublin City Council ended up having to privatise the service and we're now left with the mess of Greyhound not doing the job properly. Parties of the left should be in favour of proper public services, but that campaign ended up displacing quality jobs in the council into poorer conditions with a private operator. And I don't see the SWP or SP orchestrating campaigns against payments to Greyhound and Panda now that the easy target of the City Council has been defeated.
Another current red herring is the exemption for property owned by Ministers. Like lots of other legislation, the state is exempted from paying itself taxes as it just turns into an accounting exercise. These properties are things like social housing, hospitals and army barracks. Personal, private residences owned by people who happen to be Ministers are just as liable for the charge as every other home.

One thing that I am not sure about is whether NAMA will have to pay the household charge on all the residential properties it has sitting on its books. While NAMA is effectively a state agency, it was set up with only 49% state ownership to avoid various issues surrounding state support and also to dodge the FOI act. Will the charge eat into any potential profits or will it just increase the losses incurred NAMA which then have to be born by the tax payer anyway?
To me it's simple - a property tax (site based or house based) is a good thing in that it provides a sustainable and almost guaranteed income stream either to local or central government. The alternative, if property taxes are ditched, is to increase income tax across the board (but mainly in the soft middle 50-80k territory) or cut spending in health, education and welfare. As a Labour person, I'm enjoying seeing Phil Hogan make an eejit of himself and having to hide behind Fergus O'Dowd. I'm also somewhat cynical that the closing date for the charge just happens to coincide with the €3.1B card monte. However, if property taxes are good enough for every other western country then they're good enough for Ireland too.

A scan of the fiscal compact

Yesterday, following advice from the AG, the government has decided that it needs to hold a referendum to ratify the Fiscal Compact, or to give it the more correct name the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union. That is quite the mouthful so I'm going to stick with the Compact from here on.

As I have repeatedly pointed out, I am no economist. In fact I'm fairly economically illiterate. But it came as a bit of a surprise to me that the Compact itself only runs to about 24 pages, mostly whitespace, written in fairly straightforward English. I would recommend that everyone grab a copy of the treaty and have a read of it. I'll hang on while you do that .... ok, are we done downloading? If so let's have a quick skim through.

Like all good documents, there are a lot of pre-amble qualifying clauses before we even get to Article 1. They set the scene for the treaty and also, like all good overtures, give us hints of the main themes that will crop up in the main text. For example page 1 mentions the "balanced budget rule" and at the top of page 2 we get the key point, the 3% limit of deficit and overall debt limit of 60% of GDP. Many of the "NOTING" and "RECALLING" clauses provide pointers to the legislation and treaties already in place that permit the implementation of the Compact. On page 6, we get an explicit statement that the Compact will have no impact on existing funding arrangements in place for Ireland and Portugal through the ESF, so our current bailout will remain in place.
Eventually, on page 11, we get to Article 3 which is the first important stopping point on our tour. Here we are told that by default countries will have to run balanced or surplus budgets or at most run a deficit of 0.5%. That's pretty stringent by any stretch of the imagination and it almost immediately rules out any Keynesian activity of spending money to make money. Section 1.c provides some respite, where due to external influences an economy is in shock, it can temporarily go beyond a 0.5% deficit. Of course, no definition is given of what temporary means - is it on a quantum or geological timescale?
The second major part of the Compact appears in section 1.d which defines the long term goal of a debt to GDP ratio of less than 60%. Dangling in front of us as a carrot to reach this goal, is the permission to run a 1% deficit if our ratio is below the target, so assuming growth of 2% we would still be reducing our ratio even in carrying out this deficit spending. Then the stick of section 1.e kicks in and forces automatic corrections if we deviate much from the plan outlined in sections 1.a through 1.d.
Section 2 is obviously the one that scared the AG into recommending the referendum. It forces countries to enact legislation "of binding an permanent character, preferably constitutional" enabling the terms of the Compact. Now to my mind the word constitutional can only be in there to force a vote in Ireland. After desperately trying for months to come up with a wording that wouldn't invoke a referendum, you'd think the smart people in the EU would have managed to avoid that phrase. But there it is in black and white and so we're having a vote.
Article 4 is our next port of call. This short little paragraph provides the timescale for reaching the requirements of 3.1.d (60% debt-GDP ratio). It says it should be reduced by 5% per year. Given that Irish debt is about €170B (and expected to reach €200B by 2015)  and our GDP is about €150B, our current ratio is about 115% and even allowing for some economic growth (say 2.5% pa) will top out about 120%. Reducing this by 5% per annum to the magic 60% will take a further 12 years, bringing us right the way out to 2027. That's 15 years of austerity and cuts ahead of us, unless the state discovers huge quantities of gold or oil somewhere in Laois.
Article 7 is a real doozy. Articles 5 and 6 outline how the Commission shall have oversight and the power to recommend actions for countries who break the pact. Then in Article 7 we have the get out of jail free card for the big four - Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Any recommendation can be rejected by a qualified majority vote and considering the big four pretty much have a qualified majority between them that effectively turns the Compact into a stick for the large countries to beat the little ones. So much for a union of equal sovereign states! We only have to think back to who were the first two countries to breach the previous attempt at a financial stability pact to see how this will play out.
In Article 8, the countries agree that the Court of Justice will be the final arbiter in disputes concerning the Compact which is probably a good thing. This article also quantifies the size of fines that can be issued to countries for breaking the Compact, putting an upper limit of 0.1% of GDP. It is not clear how often a country can be fined because sometimes it might just be easier to break the rules and be fined than to have to slash welfare or raise taxes.
The next few articles are somewhat housekeeping in nature as the put in place terms of reference for co-ordination of economic policy between the countries and how the Euro will be governed. These make sense if you agree that signing up to the Compact is a good idea - if you are tied to each other then you had best make sure you're all pulling in the same direction.
The treaty comes in to effect under terms outlined in article 14. This is 1st January 2013 assuming more than 12 countries have ratified it. Otherwise it will come in to effect as soon as the 12th country ratifies it. This means that Ireland's referendum does not hold a veto over the Compact so we can't do our usual Nice/Lisbon trick of demanding extra concessions. The core of the Eurozone can continue leaving up to five periphery countries behind. However, with only Ireland holding a referendum, it is most likely to be 16 countries driving ahead with the Compact if we vote no.
So that's it. We've covered the entire Compact. Where's the downside in voting no I hear you ask. Well that's hidden away in a different treaty that we've already signed up to covering the operation of the ESM. That is a very murky document that I might go through some other time, but the key point for now is that any state that doesn't sign up to the Compact will not be allowed access new funds from the ESM. If you believe the government that we are meeting all the troika's requirements and that we'll be back in the bond markets in 2014 then we shouldn't care about the ESM. But it would be a precarious position to be in without the ESM safety net below us.

The abortion post

I wasn't going to write this post. But then I watched Vincent Browne last night and followed the #vinb twitter feed. And it was ugly. Both of them. So here I am writing a post that I don't really want to because I feel I have to.

Yesterday evening a meeting was held in the Gresham marking the 20th anniversary of the X Case which has lead to the abortion laws, or lack thereof, in Ireland at the moment. I've mentioned this before, but the Irish Supreme Court, the ECHR and two failed referenda have made it pretty clear that the Oireachtas has to legislate in line with the X Case and the more recent C case as well. Following the meeting, Vincent Browne hosted a debate on his TV3 show on the topic, featuring two panelists from each side of the issue.
I'm never going to (can't) have an abortion, I'm not going to have to carry out an abortion, I'm not going to have to professionally council a women before or after having an abortion. But I do know people who have traveled abroad to have them and have understood their reasons for doing so.
I am firmly pro-choice. And that's the key word - choice. Nobody is looking to make abortion compulsory. If you don't want to avail of the service then don't have one. But people have the right to chose and the choice shouldn't have to be shrouded in some faux-medical emergency. We need to move away from the "I was going to kill myself" line of thinking and be open and honest about it. If a woman wants to terminate the embryo in her womb then that's her prerogative and neither the state nor conservative pressure groups should not be allowed control her uterus.
The argument is made that the other half of the equation isn't given a choice - ie the embryo, or baby depending on how emotive you want to make the discussion. this is true. But neither is the embryo when the morning after pill is dispensed. Or the potential embryo when a woman is prescribe the regular pill. Or the potential embryo when every teenage boy spends half an hour in the bathroom. So in having legislated for the contraception and the morning after, society has accepted that a chemical and biological reaction does not a legal person make.
Now all that's left to do is determine where the line is between a clump of cells and a fully fledged person. That change happens, by definition somewhere in the 40 weeks between the initial fertilization and birth and I don't know when that is. However, I would think that the line is somewhere around the time where the embryo becomes somewhat (say 30% survival) viable outside the womb with modern technology to help and I guess that's somewhere around week 20-25. If some knowledgeable medic has the figures I'd be only too happy to change my timetable.
The current scare mongering, to which I was repeatedly exposed last night, was that the X case could allow for full term abortion to occur. Now, having just gone along the pregnancy journey with my wife, there is no way that a woman would last 39 weeks and then say "Fuck it, I've had enough. Let's abort this thing." That is just an asinine statement and exposes the anti-choice campaign for the nutters they are.
The hypocrisy of the Irish abortion regime has to stop. All it is doing is keeping Ryanair and Stena in profits as we export the problem to another jurisdiction. I applaud Clare Daly for introducing her Termination of Pregnancy bill today and hope that the Labour backbenchers support her as they promised to do in both the Election Manifesto and the Programme for Government in introducing legislation for the X case. I will be writing to my local TDs asking them to do so.