Tall Tales & Pony Tails

A short documentary on the Story Telling Festival and Horse Fair held in Mohill, Co Leitrim in Ireland every October Bank Holiday weekend. Produced and Directed by my good self.

The Politics of Hypocrisy

The actions of the New York Yankees in pulling tenor Ronan Tynan from his gig at their stadium over a passing and rather innocuous comment he made to a Jewish doctor, displays a sickening hypocrisy which is becoming increasingly endemic in our society. Apparently the incident happened when the 49-year-old Tynan met a real estate agent who was showing an apartment on his floor to a potential buyer, Gabrielle Gold-von Simson, a Jewish pediatrician from the NYU Medical Center. The real estate agent said to the tenor,

“Don’t worry they are not Red Sox fans,”

To which Tynan replied, “I don’t care about that, as long as they are not Jewish,” Von-Simson told NBC New York.

“Why is that?” the good Doctor asked of the singer.

Tynan replied that two Jewish ladies had been looking at the apartment before and they were “scary,” according to Von-Simson.

The singer now says the remarks were made in jest, a reference to the fact that the two women were very demanding and somewhat unfriendly, an opinion both Tynan and the Real Estate agent had formed on meeting them. The doctor chose not to see it that way.

“I didn’t know him at all so how could I take it as a joke,” said Von-Simson.

Tynan, for his part, apologised and claimed it was just a “misunderstanding”, however this did not prevent the NY Yankees from rushing to judgement and banning him from singing at their game, in an effort one presumes, to satisfy the Jewish community that the Yankees are not anti-Semitic.

This is the sort of hypocrisy and moral cowardice that allows Israel to slaughter thousands of innocent men women and children in Gaza at the beginning of the year in an orgy of butchery and crimes against humanity now being investigated by the UN, yet punishes a man who clearly does not hold, nor ever did hold any anti-Semitic views. It is the sort of hypocrisy that rails against the ruthless cowardice of a suicide bomber slaughtering innocents in a crowded market, yet finds nothing wrong with doing the exact same thing from a F16 bomber plane. It is the type of hypocrisy that sees our own Alan Shatter, Fine Gael’s Shadow ‘Minister for Children’, defend the slaughter, despite his and his parties long-standing condemnatory stance against IRA violence here in our own country.

It is the sort of hypocrisy that allows Dr Gold-von Simson turn a throwaway remark about two Jewish women to whom Tynan clearly took a personal, rather than racist dislike, into an anti-Semitic controversy when clearly there was no anti-Semitism meant or intended.

In short it is a hypocrisy that on  many levels sullies the names of those lost in the holocaust by its blatant misuse of their suffering to further a political and religious cause, something which Mr Von-Simson seems to have no qualms about in his rush to take offence and to accuse an innocent man of anti-Semitism.

The Beat of Mary Harney’s Drumm

The recent controversy over the 70,000 Euro bonus payment to the head of the HSE Mr Brendan Drumm, raises many questions, particularly over the role of Minister for Health Mary Harney. Her admission at the weekend that despite being paid nearly a quarter of a million euro a year as Minister of Health, and a further 750,000 in expenses, she has no responsibility over him or the HSE, is an astonishing, though totally true fact. It is also indicative of a grave fraud that has been perpetrated on the electorate, the taxpayer, and society in general who now find that Mz Harney has become nothing more than a very highly paid figurehead in one of the most important Government departments in this country. It is all the more astonishing to find that this ceding of power was brought about by none other than Mary Harney herself, with the full backing of the Government. Essentially, she passed all power and responsibility for our Health Service to an unelected professor complete with a wage tab of over half a million euro to boot.

One has to ask why, especially in a climate where we are all being told to become more competitive and cut wages, is Mz Harney still being paid her Ministers salary of nearly a quarter of million big ones? Why, if she now has no responsibility for Health, is she still being paid such a large salary and incurring such a huge expense bill also? Would it not be more efficient and more competitive to reduce her Ministers wages back down to the level of TD, given her much reduced responsibility and workload? This would have the effect of offsetting the very high cost to the state of employing Mr Drumm to run (or not run as some people claim) our health service. If Mz Harney has no responsibility for Health, why is she still Minister for Health? Why is she getting paid at all?

Hopefully one of our equally well paid journalists, might make room in their busy schedules to actually ask Mary Harney this same question at some point, or maybe they too have delegated that responsibility to someone else in this new ‘Banama Republic’ we seem to have created.

Taxman

If you drive a car I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.

Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah yeah, I’m the Taxman.

And you’re working for no one but me.

I was reminded of the above Beatles song while listening the other day to Joe Duffy on RTE’s ever popular Liveline in which a cash strapped small business owner told the nation how a 6,000 euro tax arrears bill, through penalties and interest, had quickly notched up to 16,000 in a very short space of time. The Revenue Commissioners it seems, cared little about his financial problems, were pursuing him for the full amount,  and had sent the Sheriff  to collect their money on a number of occasions.

One has to really question the Revenue Commissioners approach to this problem, especially in view of the current financial difficulties caused by the recession and credit crunch. Whilst their primary purpose is to collect taxes due to the state, they also have a responsibility to ensure that in doing so they do not damage the economy further.

Rather than penalising and taking such a heavy handed approach with taxpayers in arrears, why does the Revenue Commissioner not take a NAMA type approach to the problem? They could for instance adopt a policy of gathering the arrears over an agreed and sustainable payment period, as long as current taxes are being paid also. After all, the much put upon taxpayer, trying to survive a recession caused by banks, developers, and Government incompetence, sees their taxes going not to health, education, and other services, but to bolstering the finances of politicians expense accounts, bailing out bankers and developers, and rewarding incompetence and greed with large pensions and golden handshakes. If the Revenue Commissioner adopted a more pragmatic and conciliatory approach to these troubled companies, they could help alleviate the financial difficulties of many small business’s, maintain current tax revenues, and hopefully keep the jobs (and the tax revenues they generate) in these business’s long enough to be able to survive the recession which is crippling them through no fault of their own.

If the Revenue Commissioner does not already see that this makes good sense for our economy, and for our society, then should he/she be collecting our taxes at all?  Or should someone with a more sensible approach take over the role? Someone who realises that being a taxman or taxwoman is not just about collecting revenue, it’s also about ensuring our economy remains healthy and is able to maintain the revenues required to support services.

I can’t see where top heavy penalties, liquidations, business closures, and forcing people on to the dole queues will help that.

‘Cos I’m the Taxman,
Yeah yeah, I’m the Taxman.

Lisbon: Post Coital.

The Lisbon Treaty referendum which we just went through was a bit like sex for Catholics.  We wanted to do it, but was it right? In the heat of the moment, with Lisbon, beautiful Lisbon, spread before us and simmering with seductive promise, we gave in, and in one  lustful moment threw caution to the wind resulting in a Yes! Yes! Yessssss! And now, as we lie, exhausted, sated, and puffing ponderously on  the post coital cigarette, the first tinges of guilt and the prospects of regret begin to creep in.

The tinges of guilt will stem from the fact that perhaps the whole thing was kind of forced, that in our lust we just couldn’t take no for an answer, the prospects of regret perhaps coming from the knowledge that now that we have made our bed, we must lie in it and can only hope we don’t get the wet side.

And if we do get the wet side what then? As the pro Lisbon forces in the country danced ‘the seven veils’ in front of our eyes, tantalising us with the promise of better things to come, they risked raising our excitement and expectation to levels they might not be able to live up to. The promise of jobs, economic stability, and a voice at the center of Europe was at the heart of the Yes campaign’s seductive moves as they strutted their stuff in a sensuous political pole dance which ended with them having their way with us. But as we all know, relationships often change and after the memory of the climax of our yes vote has faded, if those promises are not fulfilled, will we look to our bedfellow with the same dreamy, lust filled eyes? Or, in the cold light of day, will we  begin to see imperfections in our partner? If the result of the seduction does not lead to an improvement in our economy, more jobs, and our voice being heard effectively in Europe, will we become more distant and more critical? Will our lust turn to resentment, anger and ultimately blame? Will we begin to see Europe as a mistake, and, as with all mistakes in relationships, will it eventually lead  to increased pressure for a parting of the ways? And what if the same unfulfilled promise results in similar ‘relationship difficulties’ for other countries who ratified Lisbon, many without being even allowed to vote? What then for this new post coital Europe?

Will we be sitting together around the table come breakfast time or will we prefer to quietly slip out of the bed, sneak down the stairs and scuttle off into the cold, lonely, dark of the night? The outcome of this relationship depends on whether the seed of our seduction bears fruit or falls on barren ground. It is an outcome which now lies firmly in the control of our seducer whose power over us has been greatly enhanced with Lisbon.

Let us hope it is a power and an outcome that lives up to it’s promise.

For all our sakes.

Fab Vinnie, David Lee Roth and Michael O Leary

Back in the early eighties Dave Lee Roth, the spandex wearing ‘wella’ haired front man for 80’s superband Van Halen was being interviewed by Vincent Hanley otherwise known as ‘Fab Vinnie’ for the then hugely popular MT-USA Show on RTE. Vinnie, obviously in awe of the golden haired Roth, couldn’t contain himself and asked him what it was like to be so fabulously wealthy?

With a deft wave of a gold and diamond bejewelled hand, Roth flicked back his hair and looked right at Vinnie with those dreamy eyes and said

‘ You know Vincent, by the time I get to pay my manager, my lawyers, my accountants, my staff, my entertainment bills and the taxman, I’ve just about enough left to buy a small Caribbean island!’

I was reminded of this the other day while watching Michael ‘Arc Angel’ O Leary tell the nation in RTE’s Prime Time debate on Lisbon that we should vote for Lisbon because we are broke, because it is good for business and because he would rather have Europe run Ireland than the ‘Shower of incompetents in Leinster house‘. Michael went on to tell us that he was an important businessman. He employed a thousand people. He paid huge amounts of taxes here in his home country and told the nation that he brought inward investment with his company Ryan Air. Readers should note that it was at that point the memory of Vincent Hanley interviewing Mr Roth nearly a quarter of a century ago popped into my head.

You see, when Michael pays all his taxes etc you can be sure that his take home cheque wont leave him standing at the ATM machine praying to the God of ATM machines to please give him something, anything except that heart sinking message of

‘Sorry you have insufficient funds for this transaction’.

That aside, as long as Mr O Leary pays his fair amount of taxes and covers his costs which I’m sure he does, no matter how much he pays he should not feel that he has any rights or privileges over other tax payers, or that this gives him a right to a bigger say in our democracy than any other citizen of this state, be they taxpayer or welfare recipient.

And there’s where my problem with Europe lies. Deep under my skin I get the creeping feeling that Europe is getting more concerned about markets than people. More concerned about the economic imperative than the  social one. The more I hear ‘We need to be at the heart of Europe winning friends and influencing people‘, I can’t help but wonder if the whole European project amounts to nothing more than a lobbyists paradise? If so why not send a ‘Frank Dunlop’ to Brussels and save all this voting malarkey. Frankly speaking, a word in the right ear from a ‘Frank’ would surely see a jacuzzi in every house in the land. Just imagine it. A Europe with a budget worth billions of euro, covering nearly half a billion people, controlled by a gargantuan political structure where things get done by ‘winning friends and influencing people’ and where the social agenda is being tamed to allow free market conditions to prevail. What’s not to like for  Michael and many like him. It’s a businessman’s paradise!

So every time I hear a well paid business man, politician, economist, banker,  or lawyer tell the nation that they too are sharing the cuts and the pain like everyone else in this seemingly ‘banama’d’ republic, the memory of Mr Roth comes back to me. It rises up when I hear well paid commentators and journalists tell the nation that public sector pay must be cut, education and health cuts must be implemented, that we are all living beyond our means. And it really hits home when one realises that the cuts that the well heeled are taking are more than the average yearly wage of over 80% of the people in this country.

Europe and Ireland. A world of equals? I don’t think so.

Guest of the Nation

A short film I made some time back about an asylum seeker awaiting news of his family back home. Given the issue of asylum seekers raised it’s head this week I thought it would act as a reminder to people what many of them are running from.

The film highlights the plight of many asylum seekers who have been traumatised and tormented by forces in their own countries, many of whose regimes are encouraged and supported for financial and geo-political reasons by the very countries in the west that seek to stop such people seeking sanctuary. The film hopes to stimulate debate as to whether we should be looking at the push factors in the refugee issue as well as the pull factors.  What drives them to travel great distances, risk life and limb to get to our shores? In many cases it is because of brutality and human rights abuses, in many more it is for economic reasons brought about by appalling corruption and mismanagement of their economies by corrupt Governments, many of whose leaders are welcomed here as ‘Guests of the Nation’ having millions of taxpayers money spent on lavishing them in gifts, honours and trade.

A very different welcome than we extend to the victims of these same leaders.

It’s Not Easy Being Green!

It’s not easy being green. So goes the old Van Morrison song, and in today’s political and economic climate, as John Gormley and the Irish Greens are finding out, never was a truer word spoken (or sung).

Having derived their political power from concerns about the future of the planet they seem to have largely forgotten that they need to have a social vision as well as an environmental one. Their support of Fianna Fail seems to be predicated on them getting what they want in terms of bettering our environment, at the expense of bettering our society. The unwritten rule seems to be that Fianna Fail can bail out banks, slash and burn services, and generally have a free hand at whatever they want as long as they allow the Greens to pursue and implement their own agenda. Listening to John Gormley today on RTE one would get the impression that he was the one responsible for the recent and forthcoming amendments to the NAMA legislation. No doubt someone more qualified than me will remind him that were it not for the grass-roots revolution in their Green party, John and his fellow Greens in Cabinet would have allowed the NAMA bill to go through unchallenged.  Their relative silence regarding the social devastation which much of the McCarthy report will bring on the most vulnerable in society is indicative of their ‘keep the head down and plough on with our own Green agenda’ policy which they seem to have  adopted since taking up their positions in Government. One does not have to be a Pulitzer prizewinner to know that were the Greens in opposition right now, they would be screaming from the rooftops in protest at the McCarthy report and the totally unbalanced Commission on Taxation Report which puts the burden on ordinary citizens and gives more tax breaks to business thus allowing the economic imperative to supersede the social imperative yet again.

Whilst I am in total agreement with them on their relentless pursuit of the Green agenda, I am also fully aware that these Green policies and initiatives will not be sustained if the Green Party is, like the PD’s, decimated and banished to history in the next election. Mr Gormley’s call yesterday for a social dividend to be paid from NAMA might be seen as a sea change but might also be too little, too late. The price they might have to pay for their political singularity could be total annihilation and a collapse in public support for all things Green.

That, dare I say it, could set back the environmental agenda by decades, something which would be disastrous for everybody and which could plunge Ireland into an even deeper economic, environmental, and societal black hole.

Deja Vu

Listening today to An Taoiseach Brian Cowan on RTE’s News at One exhorting us all to vote yes in the second, upcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, I had a terrible sense of Deja Vu. You know that feeling where you are sure you have heard or lived through something before?

Our glorious leader warned us all that the best way to keep our commissioner was to vote yes. If we wanted to be at the heart of Europe we should vote yes. If we wanted to retain our ‘influence’ in Europe we should vote yes. If we didn’t want to be shunned by Europe we should vote yes.

Hadn’t I heard all this before not more than fifteen months ago? Did not our Taoiseach Mr Cowan himself tell us all this during the first and very recent referendum? Didn’t he have anything new to bring to the table? Then it occurred to me that I might possibly be listening to an interview which RTE had dragged up from the archives of the last referendum debate, but no, the presenter clearly informed the listeners that the interview was conducted live in the studio today Wednesday Sept 02 2009.

Is it truly possible that this Government thinks that it can win this referendum by repeating the arguments of the last one, arguments which were rejected by the people little more than a year ago? Is it conceivable that despite all the consultations, summits and other activities since the last referendum the Taoiseach can only come up with a repeat of the same arguments put forward back then? Or is it possible that Mr Cowan, having seen the so called ‘legal guarantees’ being exposed as little more than a toothless political agreement between heads of state, now realises that in fact what he is putting to the people next October is exactly the same as was put to them over a year ago, hence the repetition of the same argument as last time? And if this is true then could not Mr Cowan and many on the yes side be accused of corrupting and manipulating our democratic process to suit their wishes over those of the people by presenting the exact same argument which the people rejected on June 13 last year by a sizeable 53.4% of the votes?

A further worrying familiarity is that at the end of the interview Mr Cowan was asked again if he had read the treaty. This was a question he chose, for whatever reason, not to answer, instead preferring to tell us that the Government and all Departments would be ‘au-fe’ (I’ve never really understood what the hell that means) with all aspects of the treaty.

Today’s interview raises many questions which those who have been through the first referendum will find familiar. That is because they are exactly the same questions raised last time out. Questions like, if we vote no will we lose our Commissioner? If we vote no will we be shunned by Europe, and if so, who wants any part of that kind of democracy? Is our influence in Europe dependent on us saying yes to everything Europe demands? Oh and one last but very important one. Has our Taoiseach actually read the treaty this time?

Please tell us that you have Taoiseach….Please….

See what I mean about Deja Vu!

The Lockerbie Conspiracy

Link below to BBC documentary on Lockerbie which should be seen by those who wish to condemn Scotland and Al-Megrahi. The evidence against Al Megrahi and the activities of the CIA and the Lockerbie investigative team are very seriously called into question not least by one of the American prosecutors of the case who says he felt like Colin Powell in the UN on presenting the Weapons of Mass Destruction case, i.e. used and abused. Judge for yourselves. Click on the link below to watch the programme.