05.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:13 pm by Sarah
Frank McNally does a nice job today on the history of Jewish immigration.
” The inconvenient truth is that Ireland refused numerous visa applications from European Jews in the 1930s, something for which John Bruton, when Taoiseach, apologised. As Alan Shatter told the assembly in Tailors Lane, official Ireland’s stance before the war was heavily influenced by De Valera’s envoy in Berlin, Charles Bewley, a notorious anti-Semite who was eventually recalled in disgrace, but not until 1939.
Had attitudes been different, many more would have survived the death camps, and the Irish Jewish community might be much larger today. …..
The experience of those who did make it here was mostly positive. There was relatively little discrimination. As Joe Briscoe, brother of Ben and son of a former Dublin lord mayor, Robert, told the gathering, Ireland is “the only country in Europe where not one Jewish person has been killed because of his religion”.
Unfortunately, this had echoes of the passage in Ulysses where the schoolmaster Mr Deasy asked Stephen Dedalus if he knew that Ireland is the only country never to persecute Jews: “And do you know why? – Because she never let them in.”
Deasy’s claim was not quite true when Joyce wrote it, nor even perhaps in the year Ulysses was set: 1904. But the comment was accidentally prescient, and it became true when it mattered most.”
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Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 1:56 pm by Sarah
As this blog is fast turning into The Country Diary of a Post-Modern Lady, I should advertise this Teagasc event in Athenry on June 20th. A demonstration of best practice. A delegation must be sent, surely?
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05.27.08
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 9:41 pm by Sarah
Flavin FINALLY resigns. I can’t wait to read Shane Ross on Sunday.
In other news I have now finished Series 1 of BSG. Smashing stuff. I could’ve gone straight into Series 2 but its such a pleasure, why binge? I will extend the thrill……
Also, who would’ve thought we’d be so glad to see some rain? The weather has been RIDICULOUSLY cold. That north-east wind has had me fretting for the survival of my seedlings. So far though, I should report that the transplanted lettuces appear perky. I might try the spinach at the weekend.
The nettle/thistle situation is creating a severe crisis of conscience. Surely one HAS to spray? IF we defeat them then we restore the other plants in a couple of years when we are nettle free? Betty says the trick is targetting the spray. Close to the ground, only in affected areas and when there is no wind. I can’t help admiring the ditch that she spent at least 5 years spraying and finally defeated the wretched weeds. Now there is lovely long grass and the buttercups are bountiful. I think I’ll ring some expert. I refuse to believe we are required to indulge thistles in the name of the environment. Advice welcome.
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05.26.08
Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Irish Politics at 11:11 am by Sarah
LAST Monday night found me in the Ardboyne Hotel in Navan with a bunch of farmers, educating myself about the World Trade Organisation. Unsurprisingly, out of the 100 or so present there was just one lady farmer, and a total of four women in the room. The farmerette, me, MEP Mairead McGuinness and her political and logistical supporter Emer Smith-Duff.
McGuinness would be getting up at 4.30am to be in Strasbourg by 10am in order to table amendments to a food prices bill. Smith-Duff’s job is to get her out of the meeting before 10.30pm so she can get some sleep. But there’s no sign of tiredness when McGuinness takes the floor. She stays on her feet for 90 minutes, telling us about a recent trip to Brazil, the Lisbon Treaty and the WTO talks. Usually at these meetings people shift around in their seats, yawn, and check their watches. Tonight they are fully engaged as the Fine Gael MEP takes questions and explains both the big picture and the minute detail of how geo-political negotiations, consumer concerns, bureaucratic systems and national politics are colliding to dictate the future of the people in the room. I’d decided to find out about the WTO talks because I kept hearing farmers moaning that Peter Mandelson, the UK commissioner who is negotiating for the EU, is selling them out. Others are complaining that this is just the farmers moaning as usual.
The farmers say that Mandelson wants to agree to tariff reductions and increased importation of South American beef. This would effectively ruin Irish beef farming. The free-market libertarians say that Irish farmers shouldn’t get subsidies to produce beef in the first place. If Brazil or any other country can send us beef for half the price, so be it. Who cares if the beast is Irish, Brazilian or Australian? We live in a globalised world and if farmers can’t make money from their enterprise, tough. I’d a fair idea this argument was flawed, but I wanted to know precisely why.
The WTO sets the rules for trade between countries. The current phase of negotiations is called “the Doha round” after the city in Qatar where they started. They’re also referred to as “the development round”, as everyone agrees the rules have to change to help developing countries.
Most farm subsidies have now been “decoupled”, which means that farmers get their cheques in the post from Brussels no matter what they produce. This was done to reform the crazy system whereby farmers produced more and more just to earn bigger cheques, as a result of which the infamous food mountains and wine lakes were created.
While the reforms were correct, a problem arose with the collapse of the suckler herd, or cattle nursery, and beef supplies were endangered. Why go to the trouble of producing calves if you’re getting paid anyway? Since we need meat, a special subsidy was reintroduced for calves in order to encourage production.
One point on which I’m satisfied, having listened to McGuinness, is that the Lisbon Treaty is completely independent of the WTO talks. Whether the treaty is passed in next month’s referendum or not, the talks will go on.
There are many technical issues associated with the Doha round but you could boil it down to this question: should Irish farmers compete without subsidies against Brazilian beef?
McGuinness described the awesome scale of the cattle farms she saw in Brazil. She couldn’t help but be impressed at the way in which modern-day cowboys round up thousands of cattle on the massive ranches in the Amazon basin. The scale isn’t just romantic – it makes beef production cheap.
The MEP was also shown Brazilian beef-processing factories and observed the flip side of the industry. Tagged and untagged cattle mix together in a system that has little regard for the health and safety procedures that Irish farmers are required to follow. If cattle aren’t tagged, no-one will know where they’ve come from. Irish consumers are used to what is called “farm to fork” traceability. Every steak you eat can be traced, not just to a meat factory but to a farm and all the way back to Daisy, the cow that provided it.
So if Daisy turned out to be a mad cow, we can find out with whom she mixed and destroy her possibly infected herd. Similarly if it’s discovered that Daisy’s owner fed her angel dust or illegal medication, that practice can be traced and stamped out.
Implementing this traceable system is cumbersome and expensive for the Irish farmer. Those who call for free competition don’t understand that EU regulations render it impossible for them to compete effectively with the Brazilians, who are not so encumbered. Your zebu steak might be cheap and taste fine, but it’s not traceable. So what? Well, wait until the next outbreak of disease, and then you’ll care and probably complain bitterly that stupid officials let cheap, poor-quality food onto your plate.
The other issue of food security is even more important. Let’s imagine that subsidies are removed, tariffs reduced, and Brazil is allowed to import unlimited beef into the European Union. As it’s so much cheaper due to their economies of scale, the free market will win and Irish farmers will reduce production and turn to something else. Then suppose there’s an outbreak of foot and mouth, or China does a deal with Brazil to buy all their beef. Suddenly there’s a massive shortage of beef in Europe. Beef is not like oil. You can’t turn the tap on and off at the whim of a Saudi prince. Cattle are killed when they are two or three years old. It could take up to five years to crank up production again, and in the meantime prices would soar. The free market libertarians won’t be so popular when a pound of mince costs €15.
Subsidies can create disasters, as the policy of subsidising the conversion of grain into bio-ethanol instead of flour has demonstrated. Bread prices are increasing and millions in the developing world will starve this year due to soaring prices. But subsidies also ensure stability and a secure line of production.
The “cheque in the post” is an unnecessarily pejorative and simplistic way of describing the system that keeps good-quality, relatively cheap food on your plate. Like everything else, you won’t notice until it’s gone. Then you’ll be moaning along with the farmers.
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Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 8:27 am by Sarah
The original post is getting old (and with 90 comments too much to scroll through!) though those interested should read them as there are most enlightening.
However, I thought I’d start a fresh thread with news that the highly knowledgeable if alarmingly tall Alan Dukes got back to me with regard to a query someone made about Joe Higgins’ point that Lisbon allowed for the mandatory privatisation of public services. Dukes says:
“Joe Higgins claims that the Lisbon Treaty provisions on services mean that Member States have to open up all service markets to competition from imports (from other Member States). He claims that this means that private operators can thereby get into service markets in health, education and other public services. He goes on then to say that this means that we would be forced to allow privatisation in these sectors.
He overlooked the fact that the Treaty provides that Member States can make exceptions in the case of public services. I understand that he agreed, on a Prime Time programme with Lucinda Creighton on Thursday, that the exception is there, but he did not understand its significance.
The actual position is that each Member State can make its own decisions about whether or not to open up public service sectors to competition from other Member States. There is no compulsion involved.
Here, for example, the Government has already allowed private sector participation in the provision of health services, in the form of private hospitals and now with the co-location of private hospitals on public hospital campuses. This has been an independent position of the Irish Government.
There is already a substantial element of private participation in the education sector (e.g. Griffith College, a multiplicity of grind schools at second level, etc.). Once again, the decision to allow these was a sovereign decision of the Irish Government and the Lisbon Treaty would not affect it one way or the other.
In general, Joe Higgins misinterprets the Treaty, either inadvertently or deliberately.
It is worth noting that the Referendum Commission has confirmed
(a) that the Irish veto on tax matters (or, more accurately, the requirement of unanimity in any decisions on tax matters) remains, and
(b) the Lisbon Treaty does not prejudice Irish neutrality.
These two declarations are significant in themselves and also because they confirm that elements on the “NO” side are either misreading or misrepresenting provisions of the Treaty.”
I see The Irish Times continues to push the FF line that a defeat of the Treaty will be Fine Gael’s fault. If the “loo-las” vote No to smite the government, is that really Enda Kenny’s fault, or the bully boy, ignorant, alienating tactics of the FF leadership?
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05.25.08
Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 10:39 am by Sarah
I am reading Isabelle Allende’s Memoir. What a life this woman has had. It’s great reading, though she is a little whacky – lots of new age, and old age, spiritual stuff. Thanks to F who gave me the signed copy as a present. I am very proud of it. I think its strictly women’s reading though. Too much earth mothery stuff for the lads. It makes me want to read her other books. So that’s good, as I’m parched for books. It’s hard finding non-violent, non-trivial, moving but uplifting material.
In other news I transplanted the lettuce seedlings from the tray into the bed yesterday. I’m not sure I’ll go the tray route again. It seems like a high risk procedure. Will they survive? I dug up more thistles too, though this is an activity riven with self doubt. If you leave one teeny tiny root, it’ll grow back. But one must try. Can’t be spraying everywhere. Confession: we do spray nettles, but with a selective weed killer, none of your Meath County Council Agent Orange style operation.
n compensation, we found a bank of cowslips that survived over-grazing in one of the fields so the Uncle dug up 3 or 4 for us and I planted them in what we are hoping will be a proper old fashioned meadow. It, like everything else in our 1 acre one-off site, is a 5 year project. It’s a slow battle. We want the nettles and thistles out, but the flowers in. Our wild-flower spotters send reports and we rob a sample and hope they’ll flourish. Its a constant bargaining process – we steal and destroy in the hope of creating or restoring. Fingers crossed.
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05.23.08
Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 10:32 pm by Sarah
Now it’s all, “Tent, what tent? oh THAT tent? ah, sure I never went anyway or if I did, it was only once cos I had to.”
Just today (on random programmes as I was out most of the day)
- Eamon O’Cuiv (says he never likes racing)
- Mary O’Rourke (she prefers Kilbeggan)
- Charlie McCreevy (well he prefers betting and it was only “a pain in the arse” having to call into the tent”
- Seamus Brennan (never went – this apparently is true).
Lo! Was that a cock crowing in the distance?
Apparently someone else said its like 1916 in reverse. No one was there.
I wonder who’ll deny the tent tomorrow?
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Posted in Sunday Times Columns at 4:53 pm by Sarah
It was my birthday on Monday. At my request M bought me a facial at the local spa. I’ve been wincing as I’ve looked in the mirror recently. Sure enough, Eva, the Polish facialist, confirmed my worst suspicions. In clipped authoritative tones and clutching her clipboard she diagnosed me with dry VERY sensitive skin.
“37 Sarah. You are 37. You are no longer a teenager. See here where the wrinkles are forming around your eyes? This is because you are losing collagen. You need lots of collagen. What cosmetics are using? You must go home and throw out everything that is not for sensitive skin. No more tea. No more spicy food. Just tell yourself “I do not like spicy food” and then you will not eat any more spicy food. Now, you need these three creams. Just three no more. This is the eye cream, I will show you how to apply it. This is your day cream and this is your night. They are expensive. Very expensive, but there is so much damage here, you must do something about it. We can fix this, but you must be committed. I can give you a facial here today and it will give you a temporary lift, but this is no good. You must change your routine. Every morning, every evening, cleanse, tone, eye cream and face cream. Just do it and soon you will not think about it. You don’t think about going to the toilet? You just do it. Right?”
[I did want to say at this point that actually going to the toilet is not straightforward at all with the kids banging on the door and frankly involves a deepening commitment to my persecution complex but anyway]
Instead I say “Ok, ok, ok, ok, yes, new routine. Definitely. Time for drastic action. Commitment. For sure. Should I get another facial soon? Three weeks. Good. Ok. I will be a good girl. New skin on the way. How much? [EEEEEEEEK!] ok. No problem. See you soon.
I think they are working already.
And yes I KNOW I read all the surveys that said cheap creams are just as good as expensive ones. Too late. I am a compliant client.
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05.20.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:17 pm by Sarah
Dustin didn’t qualify!!
Oh dear…there’ll be a row.
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Posted in Irish Politics at 9:01 pm by Sarah
This is the column from two weeks ago but it sooo unoriginal I didn’t post it for shame. For the record though it should go up…
The Anglo-Celt reported on a meeting of the Kilnaleck Debating Society last week. One member asked for an explanation of the sub-prime crisis. He was told it was when banks lent money to people who had never repaid a loan in their lives. The meeting of this informal group which alternately masquerades as the Kilnaleck Philosophical Society took place in Brady’s Bar on the Main Street of the Cavan town. The newspaper account added that the barman offered his view. “It’s like me loaning €1000 to the local alcoholic who last week couldn’t pay for a pint and a packet of fags”.
If only the world’s bankers had the same sense as the humble barman in Kilnaleck. I should declare that the sage behind the bar and the reporter for the Anglo-Celt are one and the same: my Uncle, Peter Brady, a former Cavan Man of the Year no less. But you don’t need to be a person of such high standing to get the point. Terms we never heard of a year ago, like “sub-prime” and “credit crunch” have created a global financial storm.
The mess is not the result of a natural disaster, a mysterious economic bubble that burst or the fall-out from terrorism. It’s solely due to bankers behaving pretty stupidly. Some lent money to high risk borrowers and others rolled all the bad loans together, insured the risk and sold it up the money chain to other bankers. The bad debts were gradually transformed into A-rated financial instruments which were absorbed into pension funds. Have you checked the value of your pension fund recently? I sincerely hope you are not retiring this year.
The bonuses and dividends earned by all this activity paid for a lot of yachts and condos in the past ten years. Now we’re paying as the banks levy charges on their customers and increase mortgage interest rates.
Just last week, AIB increased the surcharge it imposes on people who overdraw their current accounts without permission. I’m not an AIB customer but you could say I have a flexible attitude towards my overdraft, so I can sympathise with those similarly afflicted. Someone with an unauthorised overdraft will end up paying 27.9pc in interest on the money they overdraw without approval. It’s not quite a pound of flesh, but Shylock wouldn’t be out of place on the board of AIB.
Still, if the bank is reduced to penalising its customers so onerously, you’d think they must be in trouble. Last year the AIB had revenues of €4.87 billion up 12% from €4.33 billion the previous year, despite the ‘adverse changes in worldwide banking’ referred to in its annual report. From these revenues they earned a pre-tax profit of €2.5 billion for 2007. That was down 4% on 2006. Oh dear, tough times.
The Bank of Ireland is having a torrid time too. In the year ending March 2008 it is believed they only earned €1.77 billion down from €1.95 billion in the previous year. If you’re a BoI customer you’d better watch out. With such disastrous results, they’ll be forced to charge you a vital organ if you miss a car loan repayment.
So what’s new? Banks like maximising profits. The problem is the effect their practices have on the entire economy in good times and bad. During the property boom, house prices escalated out of all control. Buyers blamed everyone from auctioneers to the government but neither auctioneers nor politicians set house prices. The price of a house is entirely dependent on the amount of capital available to the purchaser. If the bank is willing to provide more capital to anyone who wants it, then house prices will keep rising. And so they did.
The government was happy enough since they earned significant income from VAT and Stamp Duty. Occasionally they’d come under pressure to act to control prices but they claimed they were helpless as they had lost control over interest rates to the European Central Bank.
While the government was busy blaming “Europe”, banks and building societies carried on and without any apparent regulation introduced the 100% mortgage and the 40 year loan. No wonder house prices increased.
But in the past few weeks something odd has been happening. Although ECB rates have held firm at 4% since last June, Irish lenders have been quietly increasing your mortgage rates. What happened to Europe’s influence? Turns out lenders can increase rates anytime they want. This paper reported last week how some banks are even altering the terms of popular “tracker” mortgages. These products guarantee that your interest rate won’t increase unless the ECB rate does.
With the credit crunch in full swing, lenders have decided to dump the ECB linked product. Permanent TSB : the biggest lender in the country and IIB Homeloans have started the ball rolling by changing the terms of tracker loans.
More important than the ECB is the rate at which banks lend money to each other: the Euribor. Since banks consider each other a risk these days that rate has increased. That’s why when the ECB is holding steady and there are even predictions of a cut later in the year your mortgage is increasing. “Europe” can do what it wants and the lenders will carry on maximising their revenue from their borrowers.
When I asked one expert why the government and banks didn’t act together to increase rates during the property boom he said that would have been collusion which is illegal. When lenders act in unison to reduce rates its called competition. When they copied each other and increased them in recent weeks, that was an industry response to the global lending environment. In other words it’s fair and legal if the end result suits them. It’s only illegal if the result suits the national interest.
It’s hardly shocking that banks behave like this. But that’s why we have regulation. It’s the government’s job to make them behave in order to protect individuals and the economy as a whole. They could control the amount of money they lend customers through enforced income stress tests. They could also ask them not to leave laptops with detailed personal information about their customers lying around.
Domestically and internationally, there has been a collective failure of regulation with severe consequences. From sparking a global recession or allowing dictators to keep their billions in Swiss banks, banks do great wrong while governments stand back : until the crisis occurs and taxpayer funds are need to save the Northern Rocks. As Michael Glos, Germany’s Economy Minister put it last month
“It really is quite strange when those who tend to describe too much state intervention as the basic evil of the social market economy start calling for the state to act,” he said. “Privatising profits and nationalising losses — that’s not on.”
Unfortunately for Glos and for taxpayers and banking customers around the world, it is very much on.
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