Council Budgets – but Don’t Express an Opinion!
I had the experience of being ejected from the Annual Budget meeting of Cork County Council last week, because I refused to withdraw my expressed opinion that the Political Parties were manipulating Council policy. Here are the small amendments I wanted to propose to the Budget, however, my exclusion prevented this. I wanted to do […]
Councils, TDs & Senators fail the Citizens
Oireachtas Members Disgrace Themselves! The statement released tonight by independent members of the Oireachtas reveals the sorry state of our democratic processes – does individual responsibility even exist? Just 19 independent TDs and Senators met and they have adopted a collective cop-out, none taking individual responsibility for their lack of action. There and sins committed […]
The Politics of Private Member Clubs?
The foundation of any democratic system is that it should affirm and defend the rights of the people. Our own history has produced many documents declaring this, not least of which is the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916. The Constitution of 1937 affirmed the right of the people “to decide all questions of national policy”. However, we […]
TiSA Trade in Services Agreement
The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) is a proposed treaty between 23 Parties, including the EU and the United States. TiSA is to liberalise (i.e. privatise!) the worldwide trade of services such as banking, health care and transport. Currently most public services in the US are private, e.g. local police, prisons, education etc. TiSA will […]
CETA Comprehensive Economic & Trade Agreement
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is similar to TTIP but is between Canada and the EU. The agreement is waiting for final approval by the Council of the European Union and the EU Parliament. Whether approval by all EU member states is needed is disputed, so is whether we citizens have any say. […]
TTIP Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is an agreement between the EU and the United States; similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Taken together these ‘agreements’ ensure US control over world trade, ignoring other interested parties such as Russia and China and even the World Trade Organisation […]
Do we feel saved?
The Troika ‘bailout’ programme ended on the 15th December, we are advised that we are emerging successfully from the economic crisis and are ready to re-enter ‘the markets’. Imagine a problem gambler being promised that once they have paid their losses they will be allowed straight back into the bookies office – that they should […]
A MODEST PROPOSAL – Jonathan Swift
Published in 1729, learn about this work of satire on Wiki. For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. by Dr. Jonathan Swift It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel […]
Someone has said that we need to fight for socialism?
In our opinion, neither ‘Socialism’, nor any other ‘ism’, can be the basis for building a united democratic movement of the people. It is good that we all have our own policy preferences … but democracy requires us to accept that it is the right of the citizens to determine the policy of our state. […]
Politics with a Perspective for Empowerment
A new Facebook page dealing with Politics in Cork has opened. I hope this page will encourage debate to on how the people can address the most serious problem in our society, the need for Empowerment of the Citizens. We are too frequently dragged into different ‘single issue’ campaigns, a sort of fire fighting approach, […]