Opinions & Ideas

Category: Ireland Page 1 of 8

ALAN GILLIS RIP

I wish to add my voice to the tributes to life and service of Alan Gillis who died on Friday.

Alan was an outstandingly effective President of the Irish Farmers Association(IFA). His calm demeanour, and his experience working outside farming, enabled him to win understanding for the farmer’s case from a wider non farming audience that would have been achievable through previously methods.

He did not just speak to farmers, he spoke FOR farmers to the whole community. 

I was delighted that, at the end of his IFA Presidential term , Alan was willing to put his name forward as a Fine Gael candidate for  the 1994 European Parliament elections and was successful.

It was a pleasure to canvass for Alan Gillis. He always seemed cheerful and positive.  He had a genuine interest in everyone he met on the canvass.

In the Parliament, he served on the Agricultural Committee where he was able to put his professional knowledge to goodeffect on behalf of the EU and Ireland. 

In his personal life, he was a truly ecumenical Christian, whose service represented his deeply held values. He will be missed.

Michael O Kennedy RIP

I wish to pay tribute to the live of political service of Michael O Kennedy.
Legally trained and accomplished in several European languages, he represented Ireland with
distinction and courtesy is many international fora. He was personally kind in his dealings with other
politicians. My wife, Finola joins me in expressing heartfelt sympathy with his widow Breda and all
Michaels family.

CRUCIAL QUESTIONS FOR IRELAND’S FUTURE….

IS SOVEREIGNTY MORE IMPORTANT THAN RECOCILIATION? DOES THE IRA ARMY COUNCIL STILL EXIST?

We can best avoid conflict by ensuring that authority is exercised legitimately and constitutionally, with due regard for minorities.

For example, those pressing for an early border poll will need to reflect on whether a poll on unity, passed by 52% to 48%, might recreate conditions for conflict in the north eastern corner of this island. Precedents elsewhere suggest this is not an insignificant possibility. The possibility of such a poll taking place arises from one the provisions in the Good Friday Agreement which allows the UK Secretary of State to call such a poll id he/she thinks there is a prospect that the poll might approve unity.

But even if there was a majority for unity overall, there would be parts of Northern Ireland where the majority of residents might be strongly opposed and might reject the outcome. Policing such areas would be a major challenge, as we have seen on a smaller scale in the past.

The underlying spirit of the Good Friday Agreement is one which seeks reconciliation between people and less emphasis on territorial sovereignty. Unfortunately Brexit has brought sovereignty back to the centre of the debate.

DO ALL PARTIES ACCEPT THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT?

It was hoped by many that the provisions of the Good Friday Agreement would remove the risk of renewed conflict around sovereignty.

But many who complain that others are not fulfilling their obligations under the Agreement, are failing to fulfil some of their own obligations. 

For example,the Agreement recognises that

 “ the present wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, freely exercised and legitimate, is to maintain the Union and, accordingly, that Northern Ireland’s status as part of the United Kingdom reflects and relies upon that wish;”

By refusing even to use the term “Northern Ireland”, and also by refusing to take their seats in Westminster, Sinn Fein is , in effect, refusing to recognise the legitimacy of that part of the Good Friday Agreement.  Their abstention is a refusal to accept the legitimacy of the Union for the time being.

REFUSAL TO TAKE WESTMINSTER SEATS CASTS DOUBT ON FULL ACCEPTANCE OF 1998 REFERENDA

 It has created a precedent that will not be forgotten.

 Sinn Fein should ask itself how it would feel, if after a border poll narrowly approving unity, unionists then decided to imitate Sinn Fein and refused to take their seats in the Dail, or even went further and attempted to set up a breakaway parliament in a unionist part of the North. 

Of course, Sinn Fein is not alone in its selectivity about the Good Friday Agreement.

IS THE UK GOVERNMENT IMPARTIAL?

The UK government is obliged by it to be impartial between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland on the constitutional question. The Agreement says that that 

“whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, (in a border poll) the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions “

With her talk about the “precious Union”, Prime Minister May was hardly being rigorously impartial between unionism and nationalism, and the same applies even more to the Johnson Government. 

One must also ask the question……….if unity was carried in a border poll, would the government in Dail Eireann be able to be impartial between unionists and nationalists in the North? 

 Given the growth in support here for Sinn Fein, and recent poll data rejecting possible compromises on issues like the flag, this is a legitimate, if not necessarily an urgent, question.

Legitimate authority is crucial for civilization.

The wars of the 1919 to 1923 period were about the legitimisation of the authority of this state. 

 Legitimacy was underpinned by Cosgrave’s handover of power in 1932.  It was confirmed by Eamon de Valera, on the losing side in the Civil War, obtaining the support of the Irish people in 1937 for a new Constitution, which endures to this day. 

THE IRISH CONSTITUTION IS THE SOURCE OF LEGITIMACY, AND ITS WORDS MATTER

This Constitution affirms that the only legitimate authority that can use  force on behalf of the Irish people is Dail Eireann. 

Article 15(6) of the Constitution is crystal clear.  It says

the right to raise and maintain military or armed forces is vested exclusively in the Oireachtas. No military or armed force, other than a military or armed force raised and maintained by the Oireachtas, shall be raised or maintained for any purpose whatsoever.

These words of our Constitution were very much in my mind when, as Taoiseach in the 1990’s, I pressed for the decommissioning of arms by paramilitaries as a condition for the legitimation of political parties associated with them. This was, for me, a matter of constitutional principle.

The current Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, recently suggested that his party no longer completely excludes the possibility of serving in government with Sinn Fein, a party associated with the Provisional IRA.

DOES THE IRA ARMY COUNCIL STILL EXIST?     WHEN WILL IT BE WOUND UP?

 Any TD contemplating the possibility of supporting Sinn Fein participation in government, needs to ensure that Article 15 (6) is rigorously enforceable, and actually enforced.

This is not  a trivial technicality.

An independent review, submitted to the UK Government in 2015, found that , at that time in Northern Ireland,  the Provisional IRA and its leading decision making body, the Army Council, continued to operate , “albeit in a much reduced form”, and that, while it was not a security threat, the army council continued to oversee both the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein.

Perhaps this is no longer the case seven years later?   But we will need firm evidence of that.

 I hope the Taoiseach, and the security institutions of this state, will satisfy themselves as to whether the Army Council still exists. We cannot have a party in government which is associated with an armed group, whose  very existence defies Article 15 of our Constitution. 

 This Constitution is arguably Eamon de Valera’s greatest political achievement. So Micheal Martin, as his successor as Fianna Fail Leader, should be scrupulous in ensuring that the terms of the Constitution are respected

The voters of this state should recognise the value of what we have created here on the basis of  our constitution….a state whose authority rests on  sound  and  unambiguous  democratic principles, that does not need to engage in double speak .

WHY IS THE ROW ABOUT THE PROTOCOL SO HARD TO RESOLVE?

Leaders all over the European Union may be scratching their heads wondering about the motives for Boris Johnson’s behaviour over a Protocol on Ireland, that he was happy with only six months ago.

He is now saying he will 

“do whatever it takes to protect the territorial integrity of the UK”

 from the Protocol. This is notwithstanding the fact that, in Article 1 of the Protocol, which he agreed in 2019, Boris Johnson himself accepted that 

“The Protocol respects the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom”.

 He is claiming, variously, that he did not understand the meaning of what he signed, or that he was coerced by time pressure into it. 

 Every one of the EU laws, which under the Protocol will continue to apply in Northern Ireland,  including the EU Customs Code of 2013,were made when the UK was a voting member of the EU.

 So there is no basis for claiming the UK did not understand what these laws meant. They were involved in making them! You will search for a long time in the British press for an acknowledgement of that.

What of the argument that the UK was under time pressure when it agreed the Protocol?

The problem was that a UK government, of which Boris Johnson was a member, triggered the Article 50 process before it had settled in its own mind the sort of Brexit it wanted. 

The EU would have been willing to extend the two year period, but Boris Johnson rejected that. So if the UK put itself under pressure, the problem was of its own making.

In fact, I believe the UK knew fully what it was doing at every stage, and was guided by short term domestic political considerations, and deliberately ignored everything else. This was its motivation, both when it signed up to the Protocol initially, and when it attempted to renege on it, a year or so later.

Boris Johnson’s motives were to keep the Conservative Party in power, and to keep Scotland in the Union .

He agreed to the Protocol, in the first case, because he wanted to “get Brexit done” and to use that achievement as his platform in the December 2019 General Election. The detail did not matter. This tactic worked magnificently for him, as we know. 

CONFRONTATION WITH EU PAYS DIVIDENDS FOR BRITISH P.M

Keeping up a confrontation with the EU continues to work for him up to the present time. It has helped him make gains in this year’s local and by elections. As long as UK relations with the EU are hostile, there will a big vote bonus for the Conservatives in Leave supporting regions.

Confrontation with the EU also helps with keeping Scotland in the Union. 

The row about the Protocol allows the EU to be portrayed as petty, bureaucratic, and obsessed with detail. Of course, this is precisely the detail that enables 27 different countries to have one set of rules. Doing business in Europe would be much more bureaucratic, if each of the 27 countries had its own separate set of rules, on all the any matters listed in the Protocol. 

The more onerous EU border controls are made to appear, the more are Scots made to fear the costs for Scotland of a customs border between it and England,  something that would follow from Scottish membership of a Customs Union with EU.

So the stance of Boris Johnson on the Protocol is power politics in a raw form, and  it is unlikely to change in the near term. 

EU RESPONSE……A COURT CASE BETTER THAN AN ECONOMIC WAR

What happens now?

The EU has already initiated legal proceedings against the UK. Unless the UK speedily agrees to implement the Protocol, this legal action will be intensified.

 There is a worry that the case might drag on for a long time.  But a long court case, which eventually yielded the right result, would be better than an Economic War.

How might the case develop?

The Withdrawal Treaty says that disputes may be referred to an Arbitration Panel of three independent persons. This Panel must announce its decision within 12 months of its appointment. 

The legal issues are fairly simple, so the decision might be quick.

There are provisions for a fine to be imposed on any party in breach of its obligations.

 It could be up to two years before a fine could actually be imposed. Boris Johnson might even want to drag the whole thing out until after a UK General Election. He might even like to get a second referendum on Scottish independence over with, while the case is still undecided.

USE OF ARTICLE 16 KICKS CAN DOWN THE ROAD 

Another possibility is that the UK might trigger article 16 of the Protocol. Article 16 allows for safeguard measures where there are

 “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties , that are likely to persist”

 But such measures, and any EU counter measures, would have to be restricted in their scope and duration according to Article 16. Article 16 does not provide for amendments to the Protocol.  So using Article 16 would only kick the can down the road. It would solve nothing.

 Vice President Sefcovic of the European Commission has raised the possibility of trade sanctions against the UK for breach of the Protocol. 

Such sanctions would be designed to persuade the UK to come back into compliance with its Treaty obligations. The EU could impose tariffs or quotas on sectors of the UK economy which depend particularly on EU markets for exports

  Of course, the UK might then retaliate with tariffs and quotas of its own. While these UK sanctions could hit Irish agricultural exports, they would also disrupt the economy of Northern Ireland.  On balance, I think UK would seek other targets. But, in the end, everyone would lose…..a lot.

The best  immediate option for the EU is to concentrate on its court case.

I am confident the Panel would find that the UK is obliged to implement the Protocol as it signed it . It would find that the plain words in the Protocol means what they say. 

A finding from an independent Panel would be more influential, with British and Northern Irish public opinion, than any number of statements from EU leaders.

 This is why I believe the court case is the best course to follow.

 Let us not go back to the trade politics of the 1930’s!

BUT EXISTENTIAL ISSUES ARE AT STAKE

That said, if the court case does not lead to action by the UK to implement the agreed Protocol, either in its present form or as amended by agreement, a trade war between the EU and the UK will eventually take place, with sanctions and counter sanctions. This is inevitable because the EU can only continue to exist if Treaties are respected and acted upon. The EU itself is a Treaty based organisation. So this is literally an existential question for the EU. Without respect for Treaties, there is no EU.

Some historians believe it to be a fixed goal of British policy to maintain division and a balance of power in continental Europe. The very existence of a European Union is, in this analysis, a threat to British security. Some Brexiteers are not satisfied with taking the UK out of the EU. They will not say so publicly, but they would like the EU to break up. This is well understood in Paris and Berlin.

So the argument about the Protocol is about much more than Northern Ireland. It is about the  future of Europe, and this is not a struggle in which Ireland will remain on the sidelines.

WHAT CAN GOVERNMENT LEARN FROM THE COVID CRISIS?

As the Covid crisis begins, slowly and uncertainly, to unwind, it may be worth drawing lessons from it.  Such an exercise might tell us  how well our systems  are prepared for  future unexpected events.

It is in the nature of government, that big decisions often have to be taken quickly, with incomplete information. Comment from the media should take that into account.

 A lot has to be taken on trust.

 Even science based decisions leave a big margin for human judgement. The political process has to strike a balance, and be willing to change decisions when the evidence changes. But nothing will work unless there is active buy in by the general public.

 So, for example, the more a country’s disaster preparation plans have been publicly rehearsed and road tested, the more likely they are to work. 

Ireland has some special vulnerabilities. It has benefitted disproportionately from globalisation, and from speedier travel and communications across the globe.

 Being on an island is no longer the disadvantage it used to be.  But nor does it provide all the protection it used to. 

 In one year, we have suffered the largest global epidemic in a century, and its biggest ever cyber attack on an Irish state institution.

 These will not be one off events.

 There are many times more viruses on earth, than there are stars in the universe, and they are mutating constantly. 

 Cyber attacks may be crimes. But they are also a new form of undeclared inter state warfare.  By choice, Ireland has  no military allies, and no counter offensive cyber capacity, that might deter such attacks. 

Other threats are more predictable than pandemics and cyber attacks.

 The carbon price Ireland will have to pay will rise inexorably. 

 We have set ambitious climate change targets, but achieving them will mean setting aside money, that might otherwise be used for tax cuts or extra day to day spending, to replace climate damaging infrastructure and  energy sources with climate neutral ones. 

Increased use of renewable energy will place a strain on limited global supplies of lithium and cobalt.  Prices of scarce products will rise. So austerity in the use of energy may become obligatory. That will not necessarily be popular, unless the need for it is explained over and over again.

 Our government can borrow cheaply now.

 But when these loans have to be rolled over, interest rates may have risen. If the interest rate then exceeds the growth rate of our economy, we will be back in the mire of 2010.

 Ireland’s liabilities for pensions and health care will rise steadily anyway, as the population ages, and the working tax base shrinks. I read one economist who calculated that the existing Irish national debt would triple, if predictable pension liabilities were included in the calculation.

All these threats   –  pandemics, cyber attacks, climate and debt –    are unrelated, but more than one of them  could easily become acute at the same time, creating a perfect storm. 

What can we learn about preparedness for multiple crises from Covid experience? 

Plans on paper are not enough. The democracies which had the best pandemic plans on paper, the US and the UK, did poorly. 

Their plans did not survive contact with the enemy.

The democracies who felt threatened for other reasons….Taiwan, South Korea and Israel…. did best. Their plans were not just on paper, they had road tested them in military fashion. 

Only states have the necessary coercive powers to make a fully effective crisis response to most crises.

 But states must work together. Article 196 of the Lisbon Treaty gives the EU power to “support and complement” member states action on “natural and manmade disasters”.  These powers have not been tested. They should be. On cyber attacks, the EU should work closely with NATO, which has the specialist expertise.

The Covid crisis has led to an increased understanding of the vital role of government, at both EU and national level.

 It has also reminded us that government works in silos, some of which are not good at talking to one another.

 Crisis management plans must not be filed away, they must be rehearsed, and talked through, over and over again.

DOES SINN FEIN ACCEPT THE IRISH CONSTITUTION?

The above article by Stephen Collins raises a very serious issue.He says “Sinn Fein was, and remains, the political mouthpiece of the IRA.”

He says “Sinn Fein was, and remains, the political mouthpiece of the IRA.” The IRA is illegal. It is a criminal offence to belong to it.

It is also unconstitutional. The Irish Constitution was adopted in a Referendum in 1937 and remains the supreme law of our state.

Article 15 (6) of the Irish Constitution plainly says

“The right to raise and maintain a military or armed force is vested exclusively in the Oireachtas.”

and it adds

“No military or armed force , other than a military or armed force raised and maintained by the Oireachtas, shall be raised or maintained for any purpose whatsoever”

The IRA has thus existed, and continues to exist, in direct defiance of the Irish Constitution.

Yet Sinn Fein members of the Oireachtas, serving under the same Irish Constitution, continue to extol the IRA and its actions.

This is hypocritical, but it is also subversive of the institutional basis of the Irish state.

Sinn Fein needs to say if it is willing to be loyal , in word and deed, to Article 15 of the Irish Constitution.

CAREFUL THOUGHT NEEDED ON BORDER POLLS

The history of Northern Ireland, since 1920, demonstrates the danger of attempting to impose, by a simple majority, a constitutional settlement, and an identity, on a minority who feel they have been overruled.

Those pressing for an early border poll on Irish unity, which would have to take place in both parts of Ireland, should reflect on this. Such a poll could repeat the error of 1920 and add to divisions, rather than diminish them.

 I was a bit surprised then to see Bertie Ahern, former Taoiseach, call for the border polls to take place in 2028 (the 30th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement). He knows how fraught things could become.

 Setting target dates, without having first done all the groundwork and collected all the data, can lead to unintended consequences.

Target dates tend to be misinterpreted as promises, and a sense of inevitability takes over, and rational discussion of the risks becomes impossible.

This is what happened with the 2016 UK Referendum on Brexit.

 Reducing a complex issue, with many nuances and gradations, to an over simplified Yes/No question is hazardous in itself.

Setting target dates for a referendum, before any details have been worked out, is even more reckless.

As  the Brexit experience in 2016 has shown, it can also lead to the oppression of minority view points, lasting division, and to unforeseen consequences. .

For these reasons, I was also surprised to see Sinn Fein spending large sums in advertisements in the US, calling for early referenda on Irish unity, without reference to the lessons we have all learned from the Brexit referendum.

A SIMPLE MAJORITY POLL MAY BE LEGAL, BUT IS IT WISE AT THIS STAGE?

The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) does indeed provide for such a poll to be called, on the basis of a political judgement by the UK government that a majority in Northern Ireland would vote for Irish unity.

 But it does not require the UK government to consult with the Irish government, even though a poll on the same subject would have to take place in Ireland too, probably on the same day, and the effects of the polls would be felt across the whole island!

 This omission suggests to me that the provisions for border polls in the GFA were not thought through by the negotiators at the time.

Even though all other legislative decisions in Northern Ireland must, under the GFA, be agreed by a procedure of parallel consent of both nationalists and unionists, this, seminal and possibly irrevocable, decision to change  sovereign status is to be taken for Northern Ireland, by a simple majority of  just one vote in a referendum. There is no room left for negotiation on that in GFA.

As Seamus Mallon recognised, this is a recipe for trouble.

 The notion of deciding to enforce Irish unity on the basis of a 51%/49% vote sits uncomfortably beside the principles in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, agreed by Albert Reynolds and John Major.

That Declaration is the foundation on which the GFA, and the entire peace process, was built by the two governments.

The wise words of the Downing Street Declaration should influence both

  • whether , and when, a border should take place, and
  • how voters in both parts of Ireland should vote, if such a poll is eventually called.

The Downing Street Declaration says that Irish unity should be achieved

“by those who favour it, persuading those who do not, peacefully and without coercion or violence”

I do not think a poll in favour of unity, carried by a small margin, and before a majority of the unionist community have been persuaded of the merits of Irish unity, could truly be said to meet that criterion agreed between the governments.

 It might be legally valid, but not politically wise.

There is little evidence that this type of persuasion is taking place within Northern Ireland between the two communities.  In some senses they are more polarised than ever, and are talking past one another rather than with one another.

For example, the Sinn Fein advertisements advancing arguments for unity should have been in the Belfast Telegraph or the Newsletter rather than in the New York Times!

It is the unionists, not Americans, who need to be persuaded.

I do not see much evidence that those who say they want an early border poll, are putting forward concrete ideas to persuade unionists to cease to be British unionist, and instead   embrace Irish unity.

 What have nationalists said to them so far, that would show them how their British heritage and ethos would be respected in a united Ireland?

THE GOAL MUST BE STABILITY

In the Downing Street Declaration in 1993, the Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds said on behalf of the Irish people

“Stability will not be found under any system which is refused allegiance, or rejected on grounds of identity, by a significant minority of those governed by it”.

This was a humane and realistic statement.

I do not think a poll on unity, carried by a narrow majority of say 51% to 49%, could be guaranteed to deliver a system that would not be

 “at risk of being rejected, on grounds of identity, by a significant minority”.

 If it were passed on that basis, there would not be much stability afterwards.

UNIONIST ASPIRATIONS WOULD STILL HAVE TO BE RESPECTED AFTER ANY POLL

It is also important to recognise that the GFA itself says that, regardless of the constitutional status of Northern Ireland, there must be

“full respect for , and just and equal treatment for, the identity, ethos, and aspirations of both communities”

Those who favour a border poll have an obligation to spell out exactly how the British identity, and monarchist ethos, of the unionist population might given the required

“equal treatment and respect”,

 across the whole island in the wake of Irish unity.

 This will not be easy. Some the changes required might go against public opinion here.

 The recent furore about commemorating the dead of the RIC, 100 years after they were killed, is a foretaste of the sort of resistance that might be encountered. Symbols can be very divisive.

There could also be implications for levels of domestic taxation here, as the UK subsidy to public services in Northern Ireland at present, comes to 20% of GDP there.

It is also important to stress that a border poll in favour of unity in both jurisdictions might not necessarily settle the constitutional issue finally, especially if the margin was narrow.

Paragraph (v) of the GFA will oblige the government of a united Ireland to continue to respect the “aspirations” of the unionist community, in what was Northern Ireland.  It is quite likely that, in certain areas, large local majorities would continue to aspire to rejoin the UK. North Armagh, East Belfast, Antrim and many other places come to mind.

 Even if such a continuing existence of such an aspiration did not pose a security risk, it is an aspiration that the authorities would, in any event, be obliged to respect under paragraph (v) Good Friday Agreement.

 On the face of it, this is not a recipe for stability.

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

I believe the focus now should instead be on making all the three strands of the Good Friday Agreement yield their full potential, rather than fixating on territorial sovereignty through a border poll. Personally, I would like to see Irish unity, but we must first build sustained reconciliation, and shared goals, between the two communities in Northern Ireland. That is a commonsense precondition for success.

The voters of the South of Ireland, who would also have to vote in a poll on Irish unity, would need to ask themselves, before they vote, if the criteria for Irish unity, set out on their behalf by Albert Reynolds in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993, have been met, or are likely to be met as a result of the poll.

Voters ought not just ask themselves what they would LIKE to happen, but what would be LIKELY to happen, if Irish unity was carried by a narrow 51/49 vote and there was a large unhappy minority who felt they were being over ruled.

That will be a heavy responsibility.

Voters would also have to ask themselves if they are ready to take on the financial responsibilities that would flow from their decision on unity.

Dublin would have to take over the net subvention to support the Northern Ireland budget that currently is met by London. It comes to a large figure, which would be larger still, if salaries and welfare rates in Northern Ireland had to be brought up to levels south of the border.

 There are also issues of the national debt and pensions.

 The net costs, although substantial, need not be a obstacle to unity, so long as people know about them in advance, and can make an informed decision.

Let us think this thing through, and avoid precipitate commitments to dates for referendums, before every angle has been figured out.

SAVING THE STATE….A HISTORY OF FINE GAEL

“Saving the State, Fine Gael from Collins to Varadkar”, by Stephen Collins and Ciara Meehan,  is a good example of a fruitful cooperation between a distinguished academic historian, and an insightful political journalist. 

Ciara Meehan is a reader in history in the University of Hertfordshire. 

 Stephen Collins is a long time political columnist in the “Irish Times”.

 Both have written numerous books separately, but their combined work on this occasion combines readability and rigorous judgement.  It deserves a wide readership.

Although I have spent my lifetime intimately involved with the ups and down of Fine Gael, I learned much that was new to me in this book.

 I had not known, for example, that in forming his government in 1973, Liam Cosgrave offered the Ministry of Finance to Brendan Corish, the Labour Leader, if Brendan Corish would agree to take it himself.

 Corish declined and opted instead for Health and Social Welfare, so Richie Ryan of Fine Gael got the unenviable job of navigating the oil crisis and implementing some very unpopular capital taxes. 

Fine Gael was formed as a political party in 1933.

It was of a merger of the old Cumann  na nGaedhael led by WT Cosgrave, The Centre Party led by Frank McDermott and James Dillon,  and the Blueshirts led by Eoin O Duffy. 

It was agreed between the three merging groups that O Duffy, although not a TD, would be the overall leader. This proved to be a mistake and it is a mystery to me that it was not foreseen at the time.

In making this choice, the new party displayed a lack of confidence in itself and what it had achieved and a desire to associate itself with ephemeral  contemporary political fashions, as  represented by O Duffy. 

In his favour, O Duffy had been prominent in the War of Independence and in the formation of the Garda Siochana. He had had executive responsibility. He had set up a movement and  had shown he could organize political rallies.

 He was seen, according to the authors    

” as a Michael Collins type, someone who could excite the party in the way that Cosgrave could not”. 

 If that was the reason, it was an odd decision, for a party which was, and is, deeply constitutionalist in its convictions and support base.  WT Cosgrave, the state builder, ought to be the iconic figure for Fine Gael, and ought to be its model in choosing a leader, then , now, or in the future. 

The title of this book, “Saving the State” summarizes very well for me  the core value that underlies Fine Gael. 

It is that value that has led it to enter government with its traditional rival, Fianna Fail, a decision that reflects credit on both parties.

The book is full of interesting detail, and brings us right up to the formation of the present government.

It is an insightful and readable account……well worth buying for Christmas, if you like modern Irish history.

WE NEED A FULL STRENGTH TEAM ON THE PITCH AS BREXIT REACHES THE ENDGAME

It is increasingly likely that, unless things change, on 1 January 2021,  we will have a no deal Brexit. The only agreement between the EU and the UK would then be the already ratified Withdrawal Agreement.

 There are only 50 working days left in which to make a broader agreement. The consequences of  a failure to do so  for Ireland will be as profound, and even as  long lasting, that those of Covid 19.

A failure to reach an EU/UK Agreement would mean a deep rift between the UK and Ireland.

 It would mean heightened tensions within Northern Ireland, disruptions to century’s old business relations, and a succession of high profile and prolonged court cases between the EU and the UK dragging on for years.

 Issues, on which agreement could easily have been settled in amicable give and take negotiations, will be used as hostages or for leverage on other issues. The economic and political damage would be incalculable.

We must do everything we can to avoid this.

Changing the EU Trade Commissioner in such circumstances would be dangerous.  Trying to change horses in mid stream is always difficult. But attempting to do so at the height of a flood, in high winds, would  be even more so.

The EU would lose an exceptionally competent Trade Commissioner when he was never more needed. An Irishman would no longer hold the Trade portfolio. The independence of the European commission, a vital ingredient in the EU’s success would have been compromised…a huge loss for all smaller EU states.

According to Michel Barnier, the EU/UK talks , which ended last week, seemed at times to be going “backwards rather than forwards”.

The impasse has been reached for three reasons.

THE MEANING OF SOVEREIGNTY

Firstly, the two sides have set themselves incompatible objectives.

The EU side wants a “wide ranging economic partnership” between the UK and the EU with ”a level playing field for open and fair competition”. The UK also agreed to this objective in the joint political declaration  made with the EU at the time of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Since it agreed to this, the UK has had a General Election, and it has changed its mind. Now it is insisting, in the uncompromising words of it chief negotiator, on

 “sovereign control over our laws, our borders, and our waters”.

This formula fails to take account of the fact that any Agreement the UK might make with the EU (or with anyone else) on standards for goods, services or food stuffs necessarily involves a diminution of sovereign control.

Even being in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) involves accepting its rulings which are a diminution of “sovereign control”. This is why Donald Trump does not like the WTO and is trying to undermine it.

The Withdrawal Agreement from the EU (WA), which the UK has already ratified,  also involves a diminution of sovereign control by Westminster over the laws that will apply in Northern Ireland (NI) and thus within the UK.

 The WA obliges the UK to apply EU laws on tariffs and standards to goods entering NI from Britain, ie. going from one part of the UK to another.

This obligation is one of the reasons given by a group of UK parliamentarians, including Ian Duncan Smith, David Trimble, Bill Cash, Owen Patterson and Sammy Wilson, for wanting the UK to withdraw from the Withdrawal Agreement, even though most of them voted for it last year!

Sovereignty is a metaphysical concept, not a practical policy.

Attempting to apply it literally would make structured, and predictable, international cooperation between states impossible. That is not understood by many in the UK Conservative Party.

THE METHOD OF NEGOTIATION

The second difficulty is one of negotiating method. The legal and political timetables do not gel.

The UK wants to discuss the legal texts of a possible Free Trade Agreement first, and leave the controversial issues, like level playing field competition and fisheries, over until the endgame in October.

The EU side wants serious engagement to start on these controversial issues straight away .

Any resolution of these controversial issues will require complex legal drafting, which cannot be left to the last minute. After all, these legal texts will have to be approved by The EU and UK Parliaments before the end of this year.

There can be no ambiguities or late night sloppy drafting.

The problem is that the UK negotiator cannot yet get instructions, on the compromises he might make , from Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson is preoccupied instead with Covid 19, and with keeping the likes of Ian Duncan Smith and Co. onside.  He is a last minute type of guy. 

TRADE RELATIONS WITH OTHER BLOCS

The Third difficulty is  that of making provision for with the Trade Agreements the UK wants to make in future with other countries like the US, Japan and New Zealand. Freedom to make such deals was presented to UK voters as one of the benefits of Brexit.

The underlying problem here is that the UK government has yet to make up its mind on whether it will continue with the EU’s strict precautionary policy on food safety, or adopt the  more permissive approach favoured by the US.

Similar policy choices will have to be made by the UK on chemicals, energy efficiency displays, and geographical indicators.

The more the UK diverges from existing EU standards on these issues, the more intrusive will have to be the controls on goods coming into  Northern Ireland from Britain, and the more acute will be the distress in Unionist circles in NI.

Issues that are uncontroversial in themselves will assume vast symbolic significance, and threaten the peace of our island.

The UK is likely be forced to make side deals with the US on issues like hormone treated beef, GMOs  and chlorinated chicken. The US questions the scientific basis for the existing EU restrictions, and has won a WTO case on beef on that basis.  It would probably win on chlorinated chicken too.

 If the UK conceded to the US on hormones and chlorination, this would create control problems at the border between the UK and the EU, wherever that border is in Ireland.

Either UK officials would enforce EU rules on hormones and chlorination on entry of beef or chicken to this island, or there would be a huge international court case.

All this shows that, in the absence of some sort of Partnership Agreement between the EU and the UK, relations could spiral out of control.

Ireland , and the EU, needs its best team on the pitch to ensure that this  does not happen!

JOHN HUME RIP

John Hume was the pivotal figure of the twentieth century in the development of thinking about Ireland’s future.

 He reframed the problem from being one about who held sovereignty over land, to being one about people, and how they related to one another.

 Thus reframed, the issue became one to which violence and coercion became completely irrelevant. This was the intellectual basis of the peace process.

The issue was no longer one about winning or losing, but about sharing or choosing not to share.  

In practical terms, he won the argument. That is why we have peace today. 

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