04.30.08

Ahern speech

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 9:20 pm by Sarah

Look, it’s terribly nice. He had a great suit. It’s a good swansong and very significant for Irish relations with the US.

BUT IT’S NOT HISTORIC.

All bloody day, historic this historic that.

It would be historic if he was the first but given that all three previous FG Taoisigh have addressed the joint houses too (Bruton, Garret and Cosgrave) and that WT, Dev and Sean T O’Ceallaigh also addressed either the joint houses or the Senate, then it’s NOT historic.

Most overused word EVER.

Bit heavy on the make-up. But jeez, Ted Kennedy coulda used some.

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Love Affair With Bad Planning

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 9:16 pm by Sarah

This is the ST column from two weeks ago – forgot to post..

It’s almost as if newspaper editors have a template for planning stories. Here’s the latest one. In Lahinch, Co. Clare permission has been granted for 114 housing units in the seaside village. An interesting angle is that the line-up of objectors includes an order of nuns who are worried about the anti-social consequences of more houses, or rather, more people. A careful reading of the reports leaves one completely uninformed on the merits of the development. It’s just the usual line up: greedy developers, NIMBY protestors and an incompetent council.

Is this the only planning story in Ireland? Are all councillors muck savages who rezone land for their developer mates? Are residents anything other than concerned about new development? Are officials either guilty of appalling decisions or martyred bureaucrats forced to act against their consciences by the moronic, but unfortunately democratically elected, representatives of the people?

Bad planning has left people without basic services while good planning that wasn’t followed up by necessary investment has turned some areas into ghettos. No one disputes that, but I am tired of the stereotypes. There must be more to planning than this cast of caricatures.

Let’s take the councillors. I know for a fact that there are councillors who have neither proposed land for rezoning nor voted in its favour unless its been approved by planning officials. Well, there’s a least one anyway; my excellent father whose been a councillor for over 40 years. All land rezoned residential in our home village of Enfield was proposed by officials, not councillors. While development has placed typical pressure on infrastructure, from water to public transport, most neutral observers would acknowledge that the village has grown at what’s called a “sustainable” rate.

The local population has increased dramatically but so has the population of the whole country. The 1991 census recorded 3.5 million people living in the country. By 2006 that was just over 4.2 million. We had to squeeze those 700,000 people in somewhere. Where were they supposed to live? In shoeboxes on the M50 hardshoulder? Alright, a lot did move into shoebox apartments not too far from the M50, but more are experiencing the joy of a 3 bed semi-d on the outskirts of our towns and cities.

Those houses had to be built and councillors and officials had to legislate for their construction. That might have discommoded the incumbents who believed a quiet street and a view was a fundamental human right, but the needs of the many outweighed the fortress mentality of the few. I suppose local authorities could have ordered our emigrants not to come home as they did in their tens of thousands in the 1990′s. If they told the immigrants to sod off and instituted a one-child policy, then yes, we could have avoided building housing developments. But this is not China and if our population increases, then we have to accommodate it.

Despite my bias in favour of councillors, I am willing to acknowledge that there have been occasional outbreaks of rezoning psychosis amongst our elected representatives. One of the more creative efforts was in Monaghan, where last year councillors voted to zone enough land to house an additional 100,000 people even though the county’s population was only 55,800. When it was pointed out to them at a Council meeting that one parcel of land near Ballybay was actually underwater, helpful suggestions regarding Venice and the potential to build on stilts were made. Thankfully, our system of local government was reformed in 2000 to protect us from the worst excesses of those we elect.

Under Section 31 of the 2000 Planning Act the Minister for the Environment has the power to direct councils to ignore councillor’s rezoning votes. Last July, John Gormley directed Monaghan County Council to scrap the zoning, carrying out threats made by his predecessor Dick Roche.

This Ministerial power has been used in two other cases. In 2006 Roche intervened in Laois where councillors wanted to provide enough houses for the entire population of the midlands. The other case was more interesting. In 2004, then Minister Martin Cullen ordered Dun Laoighre-Rathdown Council to zone land for housing. Its councillors had refused to do so in the face of opposition from the NIMBYs. Cullen said Dun Laoighre Rathdown was failing in its duty to provide sufficient housing and over-ruled opposition to development.

Still, one could argue that two cases of Ministerial prohibition on excess housing isn’t much. What about all the unserviced housing estates, holiday home madness and environmentally destructive ribbon development? Councillors are an easy target. What part do planners play in this game?

When councillors zone land for residential use, there is no obligation on planners to grant permission to build houses. Planners can refuse permission especially if there is no infrastructure, services or if there is more suitable land yet to be developed. A refusal of planning permission creates no liability for the council. Councillors can do their worst but officials still stand between them and the best interests of the people. If they have consistently granted permission in accordance with zoning, then we have to accept that one of three possibilities operates in each case.

If councillors corruptly rezone land, then planners grant permission corruptly too. I have no doubt that this is the case from time to time. As councillors trail in and out of the Mahon Tribunal it would be naive to believe that past planning travesties took place without the collusion of officials. George Redmond was caught, but you can bet there are more.

We should also consider that rezoning and subsequent development is often correct. In that case we need to get over the knee jerk reaction that zoning equates to either malevolence or incompetence.

The final possibility is that bad development, however misguided, is not the product of an inherently corrupt process, but rather the democratic will of the people. The core function of a planner is to implement the development plans which have been voted on, openly, by those whom the public elects. They might have the executive power to prevent disaster but they must also accept that councillors are accountable to the people, while officials are not. If the people consistently elect pro-development councillors, then why the headlines and complaints when development goes ahead?

People have a terrible habit of wanting what’s bad for them. Our love affair with bad planning may well be just one of those self-destructive instincts. But in that case, the story is about our unlimited desire for development, and not how the antics of a small group are thwarting the fervent wish of the majority to limit housing.

If that’s the case, isn’t it time to change the template on planning stories?

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04.09.08

Gormley’s move to the dark side

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 7:42 pm by Sarah

Note: Sunday’s column. Regulars will see some recent themes on the blog have been drawn into it.

You might have seen an “intervention” in some bad American drama. A key character has an addiction or been brainwashed by a cult. The family and friends gather together and persuade them to seek professional help. If it works, the victim breaks down and checks in for therapy. Is it intervention time for John Gormley? That business on the plinth during Bertie’s resignation speech was extremely odd. There was the soon-to-be-ex-Taoiseach surrounded by his loyal lieutenants and would be leaders of Fianna Fail: Brian Cowen, Brian Lenihan, Martin Cullen and John Gormley. Gormley? The leader of another party? A party that used to talk about high standards and ask tough questions about unorthodox payments? Why was he in prime position gravely nodding as Bertie reminded us of what a great Taoiseach he’s been?

He told us himself during the negotiations last year that he had started to like his Fianna Fail counterparts. Like appears to have become blind love. It’s a clear case of Stockholm Syndrome. He is a hostage, albeit a voluntary one, and is so enamoured with his captors he has vowed never more to speak of personal donations, sterling lodgements or political corruption. Such nasty terms belong to his past; a past of opposition, a past of protest and as he might argue now, a past in which he didn’t achieve a whole lot.

The Green Party Leader realised that the politics of opposition is the politics of failure and the only way to effect change is from within. Since Fianna Fail has achieved near permanency in government, he gritted his teeth and did the deal. Of course, it would have been nice if he’d shared that view with the electorate prior to the casting of votes last year. But he is no longer simply ploughing an independent furrow for the Greens in government. His behaviour last week demonstrated that his move to the Dark Side is complete. He is gone for good and the only question now is if it will come to any good. He wants to Save the Planet and he can’t do that from the other side of the House. Is it possible that he did the right thing?

Last weekend just 4,000 people showed up to march down Dublin’s O’Connell Street in protest at the state of our health services. Original expectations had been that 70,000 angry citizens would join the protest. Since our two tier health system leaves a lot of people without care and worse, without basic trust in their doctors, that estimate should have been realistic. So where were the angry victims of the shambolic bureaucracy that is the HSE? Why didn’t they show up?

There are two possibilities. One is that despite all the bad press, most people are quite happy with our health service. Alternatively people care, but knew that there was no point whatsover showing up to a protest march. It would achieve nothing.

Taking to the streets is so romantic, and there were times when it worked. The great Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam protests in Washington DC did influence policy. Sheer numbers can topple regimes as we saw throughout Eastern Europe in the late 1980′s. As recently as 2004 it took daily street protests to ensure that the rightful winner of the Ukranian presidential election Victor Yushchenko was installed in office. But in Western democracies in recent history, when has a march changed anything?
On February 15 2003, millions of people throughout Europe took to the streets to register their opposition to the invasion of Iraq. In Dublin 100,000 walked from O’Connell Street to St. Stephen’s Green. It was genuinely unprecedented. The Irish marchers demanded that the government ban American soldiers from landing at Shannon. Bertie cheerfully announced that he agreed with the protestors and then opened up Shannon to the US army anyway. So much for people power. If a good old march can’t stop a war, its hardly going to make the HSE fire middle managers and hire physiotherapists instead.

So what’s left to the weary citizen who wishes to express his views? You can throw yourself in front of a bulldozer but the NRA will build their road anyway. You can hand out leaflets in a shopping centre, but that’s private property and you’ll get moved on. Ring Liveline? Write a letter? It’s increasingly pointless. The Greens would know all about this since they originated in the politics of protest. So they climbed down from their trees and signed up for real power. As for the ordinary citizen? His last hope is his vote but even that means little now. No matter who you vote for, the government gets in.

While Fianna Fail have been rightly condemned for corrupting politics, I have always believed that Labour’s decision to enter coalition with them in 1992 poisoned the democratic process in a more insidious way. When people vote for Fianna Fail they know exactly what they are going to get.

But when the Spring Tide gave Labour an extraordinary opportunity for change in 1992, they turned around and put Fianna Fail back in. So began the trend for smaller parties to sell themselves to the highest bidders and Fianna Fail has deeper pockets every time.

For the TD in opposition, I don’t know how they get out of bed in the morning. They have none of the back up of their government opponents yet are expected to be as well briefed and write as many letters to constituents. They have no hope of influencing policy. In effect, they end up as social workers, trying their best to help individual vulnerable citizens battle bureaucracy to avail of their rights. I suppose selling out to the enemy starts to look attractive. Even within the government party TDs often find themselves voting against their conscience because they cling to the belief that their position inside the tent is infinitely better than outside.

So when Gormley is on his political death bed, how will he judge himself? The M3 will be built, the Ward Union will hunt their stags but perhaps we’ll be using long life light bulbs. Maybe Eamon Ryan will have a few wind farms under his belt and Trevor Sargeant some regulations about organic food. Is that it? Is that enough to openly and explicitly throw in the towel and tell us that we can expect many things from our politicians except that they declare their income and pay their taxes? I don’t think so. That tent stinks so I’ll stay outside thanks very much. Everyone inside: cover up.

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04.02.08

Bertie Speech Digest

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 10:06 am by Sarah

1. I’m great
2. I’m really great
3. I’m a martyr
4. I’ve done nuttin wrong
5. Did I mention how great I am?

Question: What the f*ck was Gormley doing? Standing behind him like an old party hack gravely nodding. Has he Stockholm Syndrome?

Keywords: Patriotism*, loyalty, family (stifle sob), “minutae”, “the people”

*Note: Although common usage defines patriotism as loyalty towards one country, non-Irish readers should note that when deployed by an FnFer it actually means loyalty towards Fianna Fail (inextricably intertwined with loyalty to leader of Fianna Fail). The confusion arises since Fianna Fail members identify the party and the country as being the same entity. What’s good for FF is good for Ireland and visa versa. An attempt to explain the difference to members will generally be met by total confusion.

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03.25.08

Asylum

Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Irish Politics at 9:40 am by Sarah

(Sunday’s column: this is the unedited copy – so a teency bit more ranty than that which appeared in de paper).

There are 33 million refugees across the planet. To hear some people talk, you’d think every last one of them would arrive in Dublin Airport tomorrow unless those two gardai at passport control keep their wits about them. We can relax. When people flee war, famine and systematic rape they usually run to another neighbouring poor country. If they are just hungry, as opposed to victims of violence, they’ll seek work in, yes, another neighbouring poor country. The world’s 80 million South to South migrants, as they are called, take the lowest, dirtiest jobs going in developing countries with a contiguous border to their own and send home whatever money they can to keep their family from starvation. They’d probably like to move to Ireland, but they there’s no way they can afford to. They’ve probably never even heard of Ireland.

So, yippee, we’re safe from the hordes of black “so-called” asylum seekers who in reality are “only” economic migrants. To be specific: last year the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner received around 4,300 applications for asylum status, 400 of which were granted. Can we handle 400 refugees? Apparently not. Apparently we’ve made it far too cushy for asylum seekers who are running around the country living it up with their social welfare and free flats. Don’t worry. The government has proposed tough new legislation to sort out the process and soon we’ll be able to ship those lying, free loading Africans back to where they came from in double quick time.

Chad on the other hand has taken, so far, 200,00 refugees from Darfur. I wonder can they handle them? With Sudanese militias attacking Chadaians on bordering towns, it must get a bit tricky at times. Oh well, that’s their problem. Give John O’Shea €50 and he’ll get them some clean water. Or something.

Now back to our problems, and in particular how to handle those cases of photogenic African women with cute children and sob stories about female genital mutilation. Or as Michael McDowell once called them “cock and bull” stories. Pamela Izevbekhai has two daughters, Naoimi (7) and Jemima (5). She had another daughter Elizabeth, but she died aged just 17 months from blood loss after she was mutilated in the brutal procedure that is common in certain areas of Africa including Nigeria.

In case you’re not familiar with FGM it involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia. That can mean “just” cutting off the clitoris or labia minora. In Nigeria the version of FGM practicised is called infibulation. That’s where they stitch the labia majora together to seal the vagina, leaving just a small hole for urine and menstrual blood. The girls legs are bound together for several weeks so that it heals into a barrier. When she gets married the husband is then assured he has married a virgin. He’ll break the barrier either forcibly with his penis or cut her open. Whichever. I think its safe to say I’d get myself and my daughters to the other side of the world to escape that if I could. Especially if I’d seen one daughter die from the procedure.

It’s a terrible story and Pamela has won friends and supporters in Sligo where she has lived for the past few years. The story has been backed up although witnesses in Nigeria have been intimidated and are reluctant to talk about it anymore. But, as Amnesty International have pointed out, the facts are not disputed by the Irish state. They officially know. They just don’t care. Even if my daughters weren’t at risk of FGM, if I had the chance to get them out of a poor nation where they had few prospects to a rich one where they had some, I’d take it. After all, its what Irish people have done for 200 years.

Pamela has had a lot of sympathy and support though none from Justice Minister Brian Lenihan, who at the time of writing, wasn’t on for giving her a safe home in Ireland. You can see his point : if you let one in, they’ll all be over on the next flight.

Though there are many cases like Pamela’s, hers has received a lot of attention possibly due to both the prettiness of the daughters and the strength of her friends in Sligo. It has exposed something I have long observed about Irish people and our capacity to hold completely contradictory and indeed, hypocritical positions simultaenously.

Position 1. We can’t allow those Nigerians to come in here, living off the State with their made up stories. If we let some in, they’ll all want to come. The government should do something.

Position 2. That poor women. It’s so sad. She should be let stay. The government should do something.

Position 3. Sure, half of them aren’t asylum seekers at all, they’re only here after money.

Position 4. It’s not fair. My cousin in America couldn’t come home for her father’s funeral cos she’s illegal. The government should do something.

Give us a name, let us meet the woman and hear her story and we will literally march in the street to demand that she be rescued. But this year the government will push through the Immigration, Residence & Protection Bill which will cut out cumbersome appeals procedures, broaden the basis under which foreigners can be deported and insist that a foreigner who wants to marry either another foreigner or an Irish citizen can only do so with the permission of the Minister for Justice. The opposition will make a little noise about it but I’d bet the price of storing unwanted electronic voting machines that the bill will go through without too much fuss. Irish people can find compassion for individual cases but get panic stricken at the thought of “them all” coming over here and so support draconian legislation to keep them, and their stories, out of the country.

Whenever I’ve challenged someone on their desire to protect the illegal cousin in America and their complaints about refugees in Ireland, they’ll usually claim that the cousin pays his own way while the refugee gets services that are being denied to more deserving Irish people. Refugees aren’t allowed work and personally I find it morally reprehensible to let the people at the bottom of the pile fight it out for rent allowance for disgusting flats. We could put the electronic voting machines on a bonfire and free up a few quid for something more worthy.

Still that fear and resentment can’t be shifted. Why are we so afraid of helping these people as we sought help in our millions, in the past? What can they possibly do to us or take away from us? Money? We have plenty of money, just no idea how to spend it fairly.

Jimmy Devins and Eamon Scanlon are the Fianna Fail TDs for Sligo-North Leitrim. If the Minister for Justice thought one of them could lose a seat over Pamela Izevbekhai she’d have some chance of staying here. Their seats are safe but her daughters are not.

Update : Myers makes a good point today (loaded with all the usual provocative statements, but ANYWAY)

” Two-and-half-years ago, a Nigerian idiot named Osagie Igbinidion was found not guilty of the reckless endangerment of life, after a little boy he circumcised, 29-day-old Callis Osajhae, bled to death. The trial judge, Kevin Haugh, told the jury not to bring their “white, western values” to bear upon their deliberations. Describing the case as a clash between two cultures, he added: “This is a relatively recent matter that Ireland will have to deal with now that we have a significant migrant population. You are not asked whether this form of procedure is acceptable in Ireland. If you start thinking on those lines, you are doing Mr Igbinidion a great injustice.”

But when the infant in question is a girl, then those white, western values are suddenly all we care about; hence the uproar over Pamela Izevbekhai and her two daughters.

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03.12.08

Actions speak louder…

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 12:31 pm by Sarah

I had a very interesting chat with Harry Browne a little while ago in which he argued, convincingly I thought, that blogging had no influence on politics and was not just a benign phenomenon but malign, since people put their energy into arguing on hardly read websites instead of getting out on the streets. Marching is a more powerful way to register dissent than ranting on the net

For those who prefer a good old march to a chat on the blog, I shall take this opportunity to promote a march on March, (lots of marches there) 29th assembling at 3pm in Parnell Square organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. The purpose of the march is to demand a better health service. Now, I must say, the unions have a part to play in that too.

But anyway, people on the street are scarier than people on blogs. So it might have some influence..

My top tip for Marches: Find the Socialist Workers and stick with them – they have lots of marching experience. It can be fun

Now, “What do We Want?” em……

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03.06.08

McKay on Paisley

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 1:54 pm by Sarah

I am so glad this piece by Susan McKay was published. I was getting sick of this Paisley, the grandfather, full of humour who saved the peace process who kept popping up on Tommy O’Gorman’s reports on RTE. Paisley was a truly immoral man with a malign influence, destroying anything positive in NI for 40 years. Good riddance.

God’s man for the hour finally became a liability

OPINION Paisley was a rabble- rousing dictator, always willing to fight to the last drop of everyone else’s blood, writes Susan McKay

HIS BIG menacing voice boomed through my childhood. We’d hear that bullish roar across the school fields behind our house. That was in the 1960s, when he preached hellfire and damnation for the unsaved in his church on the edge of the local housing estates, on the farther outskirts of Derry’s Waterside. God was not mocked. Oh for a tempest of power!

We’d hear it as well on the television in the evenings, dire daily warnings of apocalypse for the beloved province. Savage denunciations of O’Neill, then Chichester Clark, then Faulkner. Traitors all, and all destroyed by Paisley. Many years later, Trimble was the last to topple. The Lord has wrought a great deliverance!

Some of the boys I went to school with heard that voice too. They heard a call to arms. They were among the crowd that headed up the road to Burntollet with nail-studded cudgels to meet the students from People’s Democracy. One of them had his hand blown off planting a bomb. Others spent years in jail among the loyalist paramilitaries who thought it was their duty to serve God and Ulster by killing Catholics.

It used to be said of loyalists in full, violent spate “the blood is up”, and no one knew better than Paisley how to rouse them. It has been well said of him that he was always willing to fight to the last drop of everybody else’s blood.

His appeal in the early years was greatest among those at the bottom of the unionist heap, who were reared to defer to their betters and to know their place. One Orange Order landlord in the 18th century spoke approvingly of the “stout fellows somewhat lawless” who, in the matter of loyalty, “could not be outdone”. Any notion of class solidarity with Catholics was stamped on. Catholics were the enemy.

Right from the start, Paisley sneered at O’Neill’s plummy big house accent, declared himself one of the “nobodies”. He wasn’t, of course. He was a shrewd and self-interested politician. He encouraged a furious sense of grievance among his followers, as well as cultivating the atavistic sectarianism that allowed them to look down on Catholics at the same time as fearing their treacherous intentions.

The notion that “we are the people” included the notion that Paisley was our Moses, God’s man for the hour, leading his people, assailed on every side by their foes, to salvation. The poet John Hewitt saw that Paisley could not have risen with the rabble alone behind him. His “coasters” from the comfortable middle classes played their part, confiding in the club: “You know, there’s something in what he says.”

He made it impossible for other unionist leaders to move forward, split the party, then set up his own “democratic” one. He sowed dissent among the God-fearing Presbyterians to the point that their church split and he was able to set up his own “free” sect.

The first time I went to hear him preach was in the 1970s in a marquee in the Waterside. I brought my southern boyfriend. We went for idle thrills, but his repeated threats to string up the apostates at the back of the tent had us ashen-faced by the time it was over.

He was a dictator. He threatened “the mailed fist”. He marched armed men up mountainsides. He claimed when Thatcher signed the Anglo Irish Agreement with Garret FitzGerald that she would “wade knee-deep in the blood of loyalists”. He said the peace process was “the worst crisis in Ulster’s history”, and the Good Friday Agreement was a “partnership with the men of blood” and a “prelude to genocide”.

He loved to tower over the brink while others plunged into the abyss. The emergence of the Provisional IRA was perhaps his first self-fulfilling prophecy.

Nearly three decades of bloodshed later, he was warning that “they”, meaning the authorities, had better let the Orangemen down the Garvaghy Road, because otherwise “anyone with any imagination” knew what was going to happen. What happened was the firebombing of a Catholic house in Ballymoney, resulting in the burning to death of three children. – which Paisley duly condemned.

And then, after all the obdurate years of “Never! Never! Never!” and “No surrender!” Paisley agreed to share power with those who make up almost half the population of the North. There was nowhere else to go.

“Today we have begun to plant and we await the harvest,” he said. It was as if he had either just come off some powerful drug, or just gone on one.

For years, politicians in the Republic treated Paisley as a buffoon. In recent times, the Taoiseach has come to like him a lot, for the same reason that Tony Blair did. They looked brighter in the great beam of his approving smile, less tawdry than in the light of other exploits.

There is no doubt he would have hung on had he not been pushed. It wasn’t because the grassroots feels betrayed by powersharing, though. Most have taken to it perfectly well. His determination that the House of Paisley would continue to dominate the DUP played its part in his downfall.

Update: Best of Both Worlds here via JC

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02.27.08

Fianna Fail and the Tribunal

Posted in Domestic/Relationships at 1:32 pm by Sarah

They say

1. It’s turned into a witch-hunt into his personal finances

No, it hasn’t. An allegation was made that he had taken money. They investigated his accounts and found hundreds of thousands of pounds in them. They asked him to explain the source of the money. He can’t.

2. A different standard applied at the time – all this ethics business is quite new

Since when was it not required to pay tax on your personal income?

3. We should wait until the Tribunal reports

Why? John Bruton ordered Michael Lowry to resign within 24hours of learning of his payments from Ben Dunne on which he had paid no tax (for work actually carried out! unlike Bertie). Some people don’t need a tribunal to tell them how to act.

4. The people knew all this anyway before the election

No they didn’t. Substantially new information has come out in even just the past month.

5. It doesn’t matter cos he did a deal on the North

Who said that being tax compliant and delivering on political issues were mutually exclusive?

6. Lots of people have tax issues

And we can see why. Why should they pay taxes if successive FIANNA FAIL TAOISIGH don’t bother.

7. Other politicians in other political parties took money

And they were wrong too.

8. It’s important to be loyal to the leader

And debase everyone associated with politics in the meantime. And themselves.

9. Fine Gael and Labour lost the election so tough luck.

I don’t care. The Taoiseach took money for Fianna Fail and kept it for himself. Took money for himself and didn’t pay his taxes. He told huge lies to the people in the Brian Dobson interview. Even if the people re-elected him tomorrow it would still be wrong.

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02.17.08

No dog licence for gay couples

Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Feminism at 12:43 pm by Sarah

A friend was filling out the application form at her local gym when she noticed that generous discounts were being offered to “couples”. She’s a thrifty type, and resolutely single, and bristled at the better deal available to her smug married friends.
A few days later she was back at the gym with one of her single girlfriends, whose name was entered on the form under the section marked “partner”. The girls defiantly handed over the joint application with a cheque, almost hoping that their implied status as lesbian lovers might be challenged.
Instead the application was received with such grace that they briefly regretted their fraud. That thought was shortlived as they focused on the unfairness of the financial benefits bestowed upon couples. Why should they have to pay more because they are single? Is singledom so deviant that penalties have to be imposed to persuade them out of spinsterhood?
They spread the word and now anarchy reigns. The place is over-run with discounted couples and the management must be wondering why theirs is the gym du jour for lipstick lesbians. The benefit for “normal” couples has disappeared, since any two people can claim the cheaper membership once they organise a joint direct debit. The deal is a joke, and the gym might as well abolish it.

We are not all individuals, whatever the crowd in Monty Python’s Life of Brian may say (in unison). We start out as members of families, which we eventually leave to form new families. Throughout all societies, this process has two aspects. First, people have an irrepressible desire to stand up in front of their friends and family and formally declare their commitment to each other. No-one really has to get married these days, yet it is as popular as ever.

Marriage rates are almost similar to those of the 1950s. The only reason many people need a divorce is so they can remarry – the supposed triumph of hope over experience.
The second feature of marriage is that by extraordinary consensus across all societies, people want their union formally recognised by civil authorities. Marriage confers significant protection on the parties, be it automatic ownership of the family home, inheritance rights and custody of children. Most countries recognise that a formally recognised family unit is a stabilising force in society.

In free and liberal societies – call them permissive if you wish people still like getting married. One third of births today are outside marriage and I’ve been at several weddings where the couple’s children were in attendance. The order of events might be reversed, but the institution is still attractive even when not strictly necessary.
Despite the solidity of that institution, conservatives fret that marriage is under attack. From whom, and where, I can never quite gather. Those who feel that marriage needs defending lost the war on divorce but have found a new battle-ground – same-sex marriage.
There is general agreement that same-sex couples face considerable injustice. Though a homosexual couple can live together for 40 years, they face unfair financial hardship when one partner dies, since they are legally strangers without inheritance rights. That’s just one scenario which has convinced most compassionate people that something has to be done to make life easier for same-sex couples. The tax system aside, same-sex couples want to marry for the same reasons as straight ones – to have their deeply committed relationship formally recognised.
Irish law acknowledges equality for homosexuals as individuals. We’ve set up an Equality Authority to enforce equal rights and an Equality Tribunal to which homosexuals can complain if they suffer discrimination. While the state wants homosexuals to be equal as individuals, for some reason it is hostile to equality once those individuals become a couple. It’s simply not a tenable position and changes are afoot.
But what changes, exactly? There are really only two reasons to deny gay people marriage. The first is the “ick factor” – the inability of those who consider themselves “normal” to get their heads around two men or two women walking down an aisle. Ick.
The second is the fear of annoying highly articulate and organised conservatives. Brian Lenihan, the justice minister, has predicted that a referendum on gay marriage would be divisive. Because we don’t actually need a referendum, his warning seemed a subtle threat to homosexuals not to stir up the right wingers.
To save us a row, and because we feel a bit icky about which is the bride and which the groom, gay couples are being offered a “civil partnership”. It wouldn’t be a marriage as such, more a mechanism by which cohabiting, same-sex couples could register their relationship and then avail of tax benefits. Senator David Norris, who so bravely fought for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, has called the proposal nothing more than a dog licence for gays.
The government obviously feels that the dog licence route will be less trouble than allowing same-sex couples a proper marriage. Perhaps they hope it will keep the gays quiet without upsetting the conservatives too much.
The logic of this position escapes me. If civil partnership is made available to same-sex couples, it’s an inevitability that other kinds of couples will have to be allowed register their partnerships too. That means that straight couples could become civil partners, even though they also have the option of getting married.
In the UK a case has emerged in which a cohabiting brother and sister wish to become civil partners in order to alleviate the burden of inheritance tax. My spinster friend and her gym partner could also chose to become civil partners, if the management suddenly get stroppy. The benefits conferred upon properly married couples would, like the gym discount, become meaningless as all forms of partnership would be recognised.
So conservatives shouldn’t agree to a half-baked civil partnership concession. Those who wish to defend the institution of marriage should instead argue that gay couples be entitled to nothing less than full marriage equality. Spain, which has a Catholic heritage as strong as ours, recently introduced gay marriage for these reasons. Marriage should be all or nothing. Since something must be done for same-sex couples then it has to be all – a proper marriage – not the dog licence.
Norris is joining a new campaign, MarriagEquality, which launches tomorrow. I’m looking forward to watching opponents explain why homosexuals are entitled to equality before the law in everything except marriage. Watch them try not to say “Ick”.

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02.11.08

Developers in small towns

Posted in Domestic/Relationships, Feminism at 2:35 pm by Sarah

“Developers are being banned from tacking Dublin-style housing estates onto small rural villages unless they first provide extra schools and facilities for proper public transport.”

A Gormley initiative.

I wonder has he discussed this yet with Hanafin? I know of a developer who offered to build a school for free in a town, and the Departments of Environment and Education wouldn’t even DISCUSS it.

In Enfield meanwhile Meath Co. Council has offered to fund a refurbishment of Irish Rail’s car park to allow for extra parking spaces. Irish Rail won’t let them. It’s parking war as so many people want to us the bus and train. Perhaps Gormley would have a word with Dempsey?

My point? It’s a good headline and the right thing to do, but Ministers could help right now without headline grabbing bans.

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