O’Conall Street

Are Fianna Fail Social Democrats? That’s the question which is being posed today by SDLP MLA, Patsy McGlone.

Just a week after Mark Durkan said the party was not for sale and Brian Cowen said there was little chance of FF organising North pf the border in the short or medium term, the Mid Ulster MLA has come up with an interesting proposition - that FF and the SDLP enter into a ‘contract for social democracy’ .

According to the Sunday Business Post, McGlone said the SDLP had to consider realigning on an all-Ireland basis, as the economy, culture and sport were all coming together on that basis.

”On a personal level, it is a widely-held view of many of us in the SDLP that the natural alliance is on social democratic grounds with Fianna Fáil,” he said. ”Quite clearly, Fianna Fáil is representative of the same body, socially and economically, as ourselves, because we have a common inheritance of constitutional republicanism.

”There is a commonality of spirit with the parties in the Republic, but to a greater extent with Fianna Fáil.”

McGlone is in favour of a ”contract for social democracy” with Fianna Fáil, ensuring economic growth and protection of the least well-off. The link would mean a strong nationalist alternative to Sinn Fein, capable of putting Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party under pressure.

”People are saying to me that it’s good there is an executive, but what legislation have we seen? What investment? Young mothers are asking what is happening with the education system,” said McGlone.

But he said that, while a linkup was needed, laying down a time-scale would be wrong. ”There is a progression of negotiation, of talks, of different emphases within different parties in any dialogue,” he said.

He is open as to whether the SDLP should merge completely with Fianna Fáil, or have a looser alliance. ”There may be something radical out there in terms of structure which has not been considered.”

This interesting intervention from the Mid Ulster MLA is not without difficulty. As a social democratic party the SDLP is a sister party of the Irish Labour Party and a full member of the Party of European Socialists. Is Patsy suggesting that Fianna Fail should also become part of this international fraternity? 

Mark Durkan’s remarks last week were clearly designed to close this debate and a response to the growing view within the Party that the SDLP and its principles are not for sale. If you ask very, very many members they will tell you that they want to be in a strong SDLP, not FF, FG, Lab or the PDs.

One thing for sure. The endless discussion about the SDLP’s future lying in the hands of others is a distraction from the real challenges facing the party, to reorganise, recruit new members and renew its policy platform.  All three of which are surely a prerequisite for successful future realignment.

Mr McGlone is right. The SDLP need to become more of an opposition in the North. That is something they can achieve themselves if they put their mind to it.

As for his offer of a contract with a social democratic FF, the ball is now in the soldiers of destiny’s court. Many will be very interested to hear their response, particularly given their commitment to private sector involvement in the southern health service.

 The Belfast Telegraph asked me to write a short article about the shifting sands of the Orange Order’s reputation for today’s paper . Mine is below. Nick Garbutt who runs ASITIS PR here in Belfast has a piece in too, as does William Logan of former Sovereign Grand Master of the Orange Order (i’ll post a link to both when they appear on the paper’s website).  

June and July used to be dominated by parading, civil unrest and ‘street politics’ which forced many to flee on early holidays, damaged business and did Northern Ireland’s reputation abroad no good what so ever.

This year the first parading story came with a relatively minor spat between the Orange Order and Larne Council over bunting, yes bunting!

Over the past year the Orange Order have began a gradual process creating a more positive public perception of the organisation. There was real progress in the early part of the year as the Order worked closely with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Tourism Ireland to develop the Twelfth as a tourist proposition and more recently with the launch of the all Ireland Williamite Trail. Both welcome initiatives which over time could help shift perceptions.

The jury may be out in many minds about Diamond Dan, but I am not going to belittle a serious attempt to engage young people in the positive aspects of orangeism.

Yes, progress at a strategic level but communications need to relate to experience before perceptions are changed. In other words you need to walk the walk as well as talking the talk.

Back to the Twelfth. 

There is undoubtedly still a perception gap between what the Order says and what people see on the ground. Take my own experience for example. I live off a major arterial route in South Belfast. I am not going to take the position that Orange feet have no right to be on that road but I do believe that with rights come responsibilities. Ours is a little cul-de-sac which means we are ‘locked in’ during the parade.

Last year we were at home for the day. The morning procession passed off without too much ado but on the return walk back into the city things were pretty bad. I counted 56 people (many in sashes) using our little street as a toilet. All in all the parade took two hours to pass. After about an hour I gave up on the toilet count and retreated to the back garden but had to confront reality when a group of young girls from a band came knocking on the door begging to use the loo. I would love to have spoken to the adult responsible for these young ladies. They are entitled to access to basic facilities from the parade organisers.

If the Orange Order is serious about shifting public perceptions then surely the time has arrived when it should provide portaloos, litter points and properly marshal its flagship parade. Most of my neighbours have the economic means to leave on the Twelfth. This is a major reason why this part of Belfast has to date been happy to live and let live. That is no excuse for bringing tens of thousands on to the streets and making inadequate arrangements for them.

Next year I might put the Twelfth to the experience test but on Saturday I will be heading off as I suspect will the vast majority of my neighbours and by the time we return the council will have tidied everything up again - at our expense.

The much written about crisis in the Executive hit the BBC today and all the fingers are pointing at Sinn Fein who appear to be on a political version of a go slow over the DUP’s refusal to agree to an Irish Language Bill and the devolution of policing and justice.

There is an Executive meeting scheduled for July 24.

Will they meet to discuss the future of the eleven plus, water charges, PPS 14, Social Housing or gambling to mention just a few. Or will they place an Irish Language Bill in a category above all other policy and one which must be addressed before anything else can happen?

I cant believe I am writing this.

Off to worry about house prices!

Wondering if anyone in the Executive is?

The BBC’s Dublin Correspondent Shane Harrison has posted an reflective article on the BBC websitesaying Brain Cowen has now put on the backboiler any suggestion that Fianna Fail will organise north of the border in the short term. This comes only days after SDLP Leader Mark Durkan said his party was not for sale, a move seen by many as distancing the the northern party from an early realignment with a southern one.

According to the BBC:

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said there is no imminent possibility of his Fianna Fáil party organising in Northern Ireland.

His remarks are seen by many as putting the idea on the backburner, but the idea was never really on the front-burner.

Even before Mr Cowen took over from Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader, there was speculation he was less keen than his predecessor on the idea of his party organising in Northern Ireland.

This assumed that Mr Ahern was the main man pushing for Fianna Fáil, which translates as the Soldiers of Destiny, marching north.

But I suspect it was never the case.

In a BBC interview shortly after he announced his intention to quit as Taoiseach but before he left office, he advised his party “to be careful” about not making any major decision on Northern Ireland without “reflecting a good bit” on standing for elections and considering its relationship with the SDLP.

He said that while he was “glad” Fianna Fáil was recruiting in Northern Ireland there was “no rush” on organising north of the border.

These comments were echoed by Mr Cowen on a recent visit to Belfast.

“The SDLP is not for sale”. Mark Durkan’s words (full statement here) this afternoon at the party’s youth conference will surely cast doubt over the inevitability of an early merger with any party in the South, including Fianna Fail.

I dropped in on the conference firstly to congratulate Cllr Niall Kelly, a friend, on becoming the youngest councillor on Belfast City Council when he succeeded Carmel Hanna this week and secondly, to hear what Mark had to say.

SDLP Youth is, as you would expect, the most radical part of the SDLP. No surprise then that they passed motions calling for more integrated education, the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo, supporting the rights of Guantanamo detainees to a fair trail and demanding the Republic’s Government to introduce a civil partnership bill.

As it happens many of its members are also vocal in their opposition to a merger with Fianna Fail.

Was Durkan playing to the gallery when he acclaimed the SDLP as a republican, social democratic and internationalist party before declaring that the party and its principles were not for sale? Only time will tell but with the RTE cameras rolling and Tommie Gorman hovering his words are bound to get some traction.

The All Ireland Review Group get an hour in private session with the younger members this evening. Me thinks they will call on the elder statesmen to report that the SDLP is the future. These do strike a group of young people who see no future for the SDLP.

Carmel Hanna MLA has asked me to chair a public debate on the future of selection in education here in Northern Ireland tonight. It’s all happening  at the Wellington Park Hotel in Belfast at 7.30pm. All are welcome.

All the four major parties will be represented and I am looking forward to what I know will be a constructive debate as there can be no doubt that parents and teachers across the North want some urgent indication from the Minister, Caitriona Ruane, as to how best to proceed.  To my knowledge this will be the first debate between the ‘big four’ since the Minister tabled her recent proposals to the Executive. It could not come a day too soon. As it is tens of thousands of children are facing into educational limbo, learning through a revised curriculum which is not designed to prepare them for the eleven plus and wondering whether they might have to sit independent exams set arbitrarily by their second level school of choice.

Meantime the gap between the high achievers and the rest continues to grow here and the demographic realities are casting a shadow over many schools futures.

Nelson McCausland (DUP), John O’Dowd (SF), Basil McCrea (UUP) and Dolores Kelly (SDLP) will be guaranteed an attentive audience. I hope they come with solutions for the parents of Belfast.

Irish News day on O’Conall Street.

Ireland’s reputation damaged by Lisbon no

Many of us will be packing our bags and heading for drier and sunnier parts of the European Union this summer. Don’t be surprised if a local or fellow tourist gives you an ear full when you tell them you are Irish. The fact is the national reputation, (the vast majority of our continental cousins are not for distinguishing between North and South), is in the gutter. Ireland, once everyone’s favourite member state is now the problem spoilt child, rich thanks to Europe, yet now turning its back on it.

We can trace the ‘yes’ campaign’s failure to poor communications and above all a fractured and unconvincing messaging. The ‘no’ campaign may have been an eclectic coalition of right wing libertarians, highly nationalistic republicans and a small number of very conservative and committed religious types, but they did succeed in casting enough doubt in the electorate’s mind to turn very many ‘don’t know’ voters into ‘no’ voters.

The second communications lesson is that reputation matters to a country and what goes on inside its borders can damage standing beyond them.

Eurobarometer, the European research body, carried out exit polls which found support for the no campaign highest amongst non-skilled workers, those out of work and students. Women also rejected the treaty by a much higher margin then men. These were the very same people who returned Bertie Ahern to power at the last election.

The tragedy of the outcome is that the Lisbon Treaty strengthens the opportunities for small member states to exercise real influence and it allows for member states to protect key areas of national importance, particularly those laws based on a national moral consensus, like abortion for example. The other irony is that it improves the business opportunities in the EU and does not threaten Ireland’s fiscal regime – a message which some in the business community (which voted yes) appears to have accepted during the campaign.

Andy Pollak, the Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies, pointed out last week that the result is bad for the island of Ireland as a whole. He points to the 446,000 people in Northern Ireland and the Irish Border Region who have benefited from EU funded projects in the past decade, with nearly 90,000 gaining qualifications and over 22,000 engaging in reconciliation activities. Yet these constituencies returned some of the largest no votes.

Invest Northern Ireland chairman, Stephen Kingon, told a conference recently of the plethora of North/South business bodies and initiatives that have sprung up to help make the island of Ireland more competitive internationally. These include InterTradeIreland, the IBEC-CBI Joint Business Council (funded by the EU), the North/South Roundtable Group, the North/South Business Enterprise Group, joint North-South trade missions and the cross-border financial services initiative announced in April by Peter Robinson and Brian Cowen. All operating within a framework for cross border cooperation made possible by the EU.

Where to from here then?

I think there is little doubt the Irish government will be asked to hold another referendum, probably before the European elections next June. The question is how do they ensure they set the agenda?

The answer is simple – they need to ask a question that allows the electorate to focus on the big picture. In other words does Ireland want to be a full partner or a semi detached member of the EU?

In Northern Ireland we need the EU more than we may realise. On this island we can little afford to remove ourselves from a project which has been so good for us. Globally the need for a strong European voice on issues like human rights, the environment and security has never been greater.

Fearghal O’Boyle, a friend of mine from Donegal left an incisive comment on my blog when I posted on this issue last week. I’ll give him the last word:

“Down in my local on Sunday watching Armagh and Cavan, the usual loudmouth was going on about how great a result the No vote was, a usually quieter denzien looked up from his paper and said he had voted Yes. ‘Why?’ roared the loudmouthed patriot, The Quiet Man looked him cooly in the eye, with perhaps a hint of pity for his neighbour, ‘Because this is no time to be messing about.’

How right he was.”

They buried Robert Dunlop yesterday, another Irish hero dead. Billy Blease passed away too this weekend. An honest trade unionist and a working class leader now gone from ‘the other place’ to another place in the sky. We had a grand old party on Saturday night. Stu Bailie spoke eloquently about the day rock and roll mixed with politics in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. He also made a lovely radio documentary which you can hear here.
South of the Border the country is dividing in a referendum campaign over the Lisbon Treaty. Sinn Fein is trying to convince the country the 26 counties should reject Europe. The farmers are on the fence looking for a side deal from the government and the new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, is making it his business to ensure there is a solid yes vote. O’Conall Street is right behind him on this one.

There was an interesting debate in the Balmoral Hotel in West Belfast last week, hosted by SDLP MLA Alex Attwood. Ruairi Quinn TD (Labour) and Fergus O’Dowd TD (Fine Gael) joined Alex to debate social justice in a new Ireland. They were to be joined by Martin Mansergh TD but his appointment as Minister of State for the Arts the day before made his presence impossible.

I wont go into the details of what was a private meeting expect to say that both TD’s came with a simple message for those gathered. “Don’t think there is a white knight south of the border waiting to save your political souls. Your future is in your own hands and the way to return yourselves to power is through good policies and a strong local organisation.” I have no reason to believe Minister Mansergh would have said anything different.

A big get well soon to the great Senator Edward Kennedy. 

And finally the championship is off. Just one more big soccer game on Wednesday before the summer gets started in earnest. Antrim fell at the first hurdle to Cavan, Galway (a county my late mother proudly played camogie for) got off to a good start. June 8th is the beginning on O’Conall Street with Dublin v Louth. Oisin and I are off to get him a new jersey. They don’t half grow - children.  

It’s party night on O’Conall Street. Tonight at around 8.00pm the Yes campaign will rock again to mark the 10th anniversary of the U2 - Ash Concert which brought together John Hume and David Trimble and swung a referendum campaign in tailspin.

Looking forward to seeing the SDLP, UUP, Alliance, Womens Coalition, Trade Unionists and business leaders who mobilised the often silent majority for the better future. Looking forward also to seeing many of the ordinary foot soldiers who campaigned for an won a referendum which opened the gates of possibility on this island.  

If you were involved are you have not heard about our little party come down to the Errigle Inn on the Ormeau Road tonight. If you are already coming, see you there.  The blog title? U2 fretted about what to play and settled on One. I thought it was a perfect choice.

Speaking of the silent majority. With Ms Ruane, the North’s Education Minister, continuing to prove that she is more interested in a victory over the DUP than in reaching agreement with them about our children’s future I am reminded of the words of the great poet, Percy Bysshe Shelly:

“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.”

We are in the middle of the week ten years ago when it all turned sour. On the 10th of May the Balcombe St Gang paraded themselves at the Sinn Fein Ard Feis in Dublin and on the 14th Michael Stone returned the favour at the Ulster Hall in Belfast. In just one week the referendum went from being about the future to a ’celebration’ of some of the worst killing sprees in the troubles. This had a major impact on the middle ground and the Yes campaign began to hemorrhage support, particulalry amongst middle of the road protestants.

So much is different now. The achievements of the past decade are many and the progress had been substantial yet the sense that we remain in transition is still with us.

I had a long conversation this weekend with a friend and senior public servant about when, or even if, politics and government will move from this reactive transitional state to a progressive reform agenda. We agreed that what was first required was an effective alternative government, something to give people choice and capable of developing a public policy reform programme which could win popular support. Of course the people also need to decide the time is right to consider policy as well as personality or ‘position’ at election time. That could take the guts of a decade.

On the 20th anniversary of this week a decade ago, I wonder will politics have become more real or will we still in the words of Bono be starring at the sun waiting to go blind…..?