NOTE: John Fitzgibbon tried to comment on my Modest Proposals, but for some reason, perhaps due to the length, it didn’t take. So in the interests of openness I’m reproducing his email to me, with his permission.

I agree with much of your proposals Philip. Not briefed to judge others. I think the following
Longstanding issues were not, or only inadequately, dealt with in the election campaign

1 Condoning the Iraq Sanctions and Collaboration with tbe criminal illegal invasion
2 Poverty, equality and democracy
3 The income gap grows inexorably! letter to Taoiseach in 1998, % pay increases & taxation
4 Literacy: No overall improvement in poor youth literacy levels in the last 27 years. Adult Literacy OECD
5 Alcoholism rising. cost €2.65 Billion 2003. WHO urged reduction. Consumption up by 40% in recent years.
6 Mental health problems. WHO say this is the fastest growing area. Why, determines effective solution.
7 Foreign Policy:
Overseas Development Aid: failure to meet target leads to tens of thousands of deaths yearly
Millenium Development Goals: Taoiseach pleased with UN Declaration to only halve the numbers dying of poverty by 2017 while 1,000 BILLION is spent on militaries and war
8 Privatisation: Ideology dictates daft economics and to hell with the public interest
9 Dail: halve the number of TDs. 2 thirds of legislation now made in Brussels. Decentralise it?.
10 Traffic chaos: Silly cycle, more cars more roads more cars more roads more cars endlessly.

Our collaboration in the Iraq Sanctions and criminal illegal invasion. The imperative to immediately end the military use of Shannon was argued conclusively, as outlined in the attachment. The question put- If our politicians fail to end our involvement pre election why could or would they do it afterwards? is being virtually ignored.Too few were aware of that call to achieve critical level of support so a golden opportunity was missed to become a voice for peace and sanity in the international sphere.

A few other longstanding issues not, or inadequately, dealt with in the current campaign are outlined below.
What intrigues me most is- Why successive governments continue to deal with the symptoms of various problems and ignore the fundamental cause(s) e.g.

Constitution Article 40 1. All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law.

We have equality legislation, an Equality Authority (1999), equality proofing, Equality Centres, many advocacy agencies etc. With the level of resources available, unimaginable 10 or 15 years back, one might have expected the following to have been successfully tackled.

Poverty: After 10 years of a National Anti Poverty Strategy, and rolling in cash, we’re told that about 750,000 are living below the unacceptable (meaning?) poverty line. Is that 3/4 million “equal before the law” or living in a democracy? Well!, a very different kind of “democracy” than for those mentioned below!

The “Living in Ireland report” 2006 (B of I) says there are about 30,000 millionaires here (excluding family homes)

41 citizens with declared incomes over €500,000 pay no income tax, 11 with over a million pay none either.

Those paying tax on their half million plus got an annual bonus of €5,000 plus (over and above what those not in the top tax bracket got) in the last budget, courtesy Pogressive Democrat policy.

We’re told the PD leader and Minister for Justice wrote to 400 people (guaranteeing secrecy! why?) looking for a donation of €5,000 for party election funds, no favours given of course.

You’d want to be a miserable git not to show your appreciation of that 1% at least 1 year in 5, and especially with the known prospect of a further percent or two should the PDs return to government.

One councillor (not PD) admitted spending €45,000 to get elected in the last Council elections. How many citizens could compete with this. Equal opportunity, democracy, how are you?

The well off, including sitting TDs, with relatively high salaries and generous expenses can spend as much as they like prior to the election declaration, and then the €50,000 or so allowed during the campaign.
Most citizens couldn’t compete with that. So, is it fair? is it democratic?

The Revenue estimates that tax breaks available to high earners are costing €8.3bn each year. That figure relates to 28 generous relief schemes provided by the Government including investments in hotels and holiday homes. However, the Revenue has’nt given the estimated cost of a further 33 tax breaks.

That represents a considerable number of very rich and very grateful people. Why wouldn’t they also contribute generously to their benefactors. The 400 letters a useful reminder? Huge favours clearly given, evidence of the gratitude harder to find. It’s secret also. That’s why we needed tribunals.

No wonder the standard parties can spend millions on the elections and that far too few “independents” (answerable to their electors, not party whips!) stand a chance of being elected. “The Greatest Democracy Money Can Buy” is Greg Palast’s insightful book on US “democracy”. Is Ireland the smallest one that money buys? Who appointed the political parties, with membership of about 3% of the population, to preselect most of the election candidates? How does the millions spent on meaningless mugshot parade show their green credentials

The income gap grows inexorably! Why? The two mechanisms used to adjust incomes annually are inherently and highly regressive. The 1998 letter to the Taoiseach (and others) below outlines this absurdity

John Fitzgibbon
Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. Email fitzgij@connect.ie

Mr Bertie Ahearn, T.D., Taoiseach,
Government Buildings, Merrion St., Dublin 2. 18/10/98
Dear Taoiseach,

Is there any hope that Government will begin the process of reducing the poverty gap this year?

A group(7) from this area wrote to you in Dec ‘97 to express our shame that the budget continued to widen the gap in income between rich and poor, a feature of successive budgets. Nothing was done to alleviate our concerns.

As applied to date taxation and national agreements have always widened the income gap between the rich and the poor

Any committment to narrowing that gap using the tax system or national agreements must, by definition, take the following forms-

Taxation
To narrow the poverty gap a cash credit e.g. (£520) should be given to all adults.

Citizens outside the tax net will get £10 per week
Those taxed at 24p rate get £7.60 pw
Higher earners get £5.40 pw

Rate reductions, or band widening, counteract progessive change & are untenable.

Percentage Pay Increases
Percentage pay increases always increase the income gap between rich and poor- e.g.

13% to those on £100 per week gives them and extra £13pw

10% to those on £1000 per week gives them and extra £100pw

This widens the large income gap by £40 per week after tax.

Over a period of 4 budgets (2 of PCW and 2 of Partnership 2000) the already very large income gap between those on Social Welfare and those on £40,000 a year will widen by £81 per week (after tax).

Between ‘86 and ‘92 the gap between average SW recipients and Dept. Secretaries increased by £400+ pw before tax.

The National Anti-Poverty Strategy is a sham, pure propaganda in above context.?

Indications are that this budget will continue to worsen the situation for the poorest!

Income Tax
Income tax “reform” todate was in the form of rate reductions and band widening. These mechanisms always widen the gap between richest and poorest-i.e. give £ZERO to the poorest 35/40% of citizens and £thousands to the richest(as above)

Yours faithfully,

Literacy is the basic tool for success in this society. 25% of adults (500,000) were at level 1 (OECD 1997).
The Adult education budget is up from 0.2% in 1997 to 2% recently but no indication that adult literacy levels are better. There’s no overall improvement in poor youth literacy levels (in large measure a function of parents illiteracy and other deprivations) in the last 27 years (ERC 2004 p6 & p153)- at 30% in poorer areas versus 10% nationally.

Any surprise then that 75% of inmates of Mountjoy come from 5 narrowly defined deprived areas in Dublin or that
80% of those in St Patricks are at the 2nd lowest point in the literacy scale or lower, 30% described as illiterate.

The Cost per jail space is about €1,800 per week, total per annum approx €500 million. The Solution- more gardai, more prison places more wardens etc as before (and more economic growth!)- result- Prisoners’ criminal expertise improves and less money is there for worthwhile projects. Cheaper and effective alternatives are, largely, avoided. In the 1997 election, the major issues in contention were the kind of tax cuts to be given and whether 1,000 or 2,000 new prison spaces were required. What’s new?

Alcoholism rising. The taskforce estimated that misuse of alcohol cost us €2.65 Billion 2.5% of GNP in 2003. If we can’t begin to seriously treat, let alone beat, this problem with us for 50+ years (and growing), how will we tackle the other drugs? The WHO urged us to reduce consumption about 10 years ago. Consumption has increased by 40% in recent years. And there’s the resulting road deaths, family breakdown, women and children brutalised, brawls with heads kicked in and the impact on hospitals etc. And all this increases ECONOMIC growth! wonderful?

Mental health, A few years ago the WHO said that mental health problems were the fastest growing area and projected major problems if it were not effectively tackled.
We’re told that mental health issues affect one in four people at some stage of life, with almost every family affected in some way. Aware indicated that 300,000 are in treatment at any time. People experiencing mental health problems are particularly vulnerable to various forms of exclusion and inequality, many ending up in jail or on the streets. Four fifths of those in junior detention centres have mental health problems. The social and economic conditions in which people live impacts on their mental health and well-being. The significance of having the right help and necessary services available and accessible cannot be understated. But critical, is optimising the social and economic conditions. The concensus seems to be that they are disimproving.

Expenditure on mental health has remained disproportionately low relative to other health sectors.

Chaotic Traffic congestion (increases economic growth, exciting!) costing billions annually and all the non monetary costs. Nurses want a 5 hour reduction in the week. How many citizens spend 10 to 20 hours a week and significant money travelling to work?
The solutions seems to be to throw more money at the richer people via tax cuts, SSIAs etc to buy more and bigger cars and more election funds and votes. Then spend more billions on roads a vicious circle. Those dependant on public transport (the poorer and the environmentally conscious) must then live with a very inadequate transport system.

Overseas Development Aid: Why, when we have phenomenal wealth, unimaginable a few years ago, do we renege on our Overseas Development Aid commitments of 0.7% of GNP. This UN target was set over 35 years ago.
Each million Euro reneged on means DEATH to 3,000 other humans a year. That is millions dead as a result of our utterly contemtible failures over the years.
In 2,000 our Taoiseach went to the UN and promised to meet the UN target by 2007. Last year we deferred it to 2012. (see extracts from speech below)
That callous attitude to death for millions carries through in other areas of our foreign policy. We remained silent on the “genocide” (Halliday) by UN sanctions of a million and a half Iraqis and then collaborated in “a war of aggression,the greatest crime of all” (Nuremberg Tribunal) that has left over half a million dead (John Hopkins University)

Two years ago we spent €250 million on new guns to keep up with the Joness in NATO and Europe. The people shot with the new ones will be just as dead as if with the old ones. That 250 million could have saved the lives of 30,000 a year for 25 years. They were the options, updated murder weapons, or lives saved. Is it fair to say that most of our political parties would have opted for the guns. There was no clamour about it. Ask at the door?

We didn’t challenge the Millenium Development Goals for aiming to only halve the numbers in absolute poverty (i.e. dying from it) by 2017. Half the $1,000,000,000,000 spent for military purposes would eliminate absolute poverty. Why didn’t we raise that, let alone forcibly? We could usefully qoute US President Dwight Eisenhower “All people in all places want peace. Only their leaders want war” … “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” or US General Smedley Butler etc.
In “War is a Racket,” Common Sense magazine, November 1935. http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html he said-
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Privatisation: It didn’t seem it strike anyone (not that I heard of anyway) that the inadequacies in running the semi state companies was due to incompetent governments. Too often they appointed inadequate cronies to boards, that led to the inefficiencies. Wasn’t it at board level that the “corruption” too often occurred. Where’s the evidence that the Telecoms revolution was enhanced by privatisation? In the mobile phone area there’s gross over investment with consequent waste in administration, of equipment, power, etc and unnecessary increase in radiation. In a tiny market it is senseless and ridiculously inefficient to permit a multiplicity of suppliers. A school kid could prove the stupidity of it. But ideology, above all else must be the criterion.

Relative to other countries, Ireland has been over represented with TDs for years, yet when unemployment was very high we increased the number from 144 to 166. Now with about two thirds of our legislation, over which we have little or no control, originating in Europe, couldn’t we easily halve the numbers in the Dail. Likewise the shedding of responsibility for privatised state assets reduces the responsibility of the ministers significantly.

If it is a good idea to share power in the north why not do the same here and so have the equivalent pool of talent to pick ministers from after halving the no. of TDs. We could pick from the Senate also. Why is it good to have 2 sets of directors (ministers) one continually shadow boxing the other for our obfuscation and entertainment.

Indeed, we might even go a step further and “privatise” the government- choose a government of proven professionals answerable to the reduced Dail.

When examining decentralisation, did the government consider that example is the best teacher and decentralising the Dail first might be a good idea. With modern communications it would be no problem, would save much time, energy and money travelling, make TDs more accessible to the constituency and make it easier for women to be involved.

The mad rush for power by offering further tax reductions (already one of the lowest tax takes in Europe) probably rules out any effective effort to tackle these problems, the poverty, alcohol and other drugs, the traffic chaos, the environmental issues etc. Our failure in the carbon emmissions area leaves us owing penalties of €250 million.

It is also intriguing that unions, anti poverty advocacy agencies, people in academia journalists etc seem way below the parapet in raising these and many others at election time. The current crop of politicians seem to be about to exacerbate the problems by being profligate themselves pre election and encouraging citizens to spend, spend, spend, in spite of high personal indebtedness, further projected interest rate rises and an ageing Tiger and much of the family silver sold off.

Extracts from the Address by the Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern, T.D., to the United Nations Millennium Summit,New York, 6 September 2000.

The credentials Ireland brings to this Millennium Summit, therefore, are those of a deeply committed UN member. …The two major documents prepared for our meeting … are lucid texts, … They oblige us to refocus on the fundamental tasks of this organisation: dealing with war and dealing with want.

Freedom from Want: A Fair World Order. The statistics of poverty and inequality in our world are shocking and shameful. … a ‘fair world order’ better sums up what we should strive for. … It admits of concepts of justice and human solidarity. … we are all entitled to dignity and decency. … I am pleased that the Declaration we are about to adopt at this Summit has such a broad range of commitments. And the specificity of the language and the timescales mean that we can and will be held accountable for delivery. If we … precise targets on the UN, we must be individually prepared to adopt the same disciplines.

Ireland’s current prosperity places a particular responsibility on our shoulders. … Today, on behalf of the Government and people of Ireland, I wish publicly to make a commitment to fully meeting the United Nations target 0.7% of GNP …by the end of 2007. …

Freedom from War: the UN must do better. … the post Cold War opportunities are not being fully grasped; we will continue to avail of every opportunity to push for greater progress.

Our commitment to conflict resolution around the world has been sharpened by the success of our own peace process, … We are ready to share our experience in any situation where it may be felt helpful. …

Renewing the United Nations
… when it was created, the UN reflected humanity’s greatest hopes for a just and peaceful global community. … This task is well under way and the reforms which have been implemented in recent years have already helped to strengthen and revitalise the organisation…. we must redouble our efforts … Ireland wants to play its full part in this exercise of renewal. That is why… we are seeking a seat on the Security Council in next month’s elections.

Never has there been a more critical and challenging time to be a Security Council member. But we believe that our experience and our commitment fit us to rise to the challenge. … we can together make a difference. Let us leave here with a renewed sense of our shared goals and of how, urgently, we can achieve them.

We rose to the challenge of keeping silent on the genocidal UN Iraq sanctions and we did our best (since we have no military significant in modern warfare terms) to facilitate the UN condemned invasion of Iraq at Shannon.