Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Received the following today from the European Parliament regarding my Mass card petition.
Dear Sir,
Please note that we received your e-mail dated 29.04.2009 (17:05) and that it will be registered as soon as possible.
An official letter with further information will be sent to your postal address.
Best regards,
Parlement européenP
DG Présidence – Unité Activités des Députés
L-2929 LUXEMBOURG
Comment on the Marian Finucane show yesterday regarding the number of TDs in the Dail.
If you were to extrapolate the number of politicians we have per head of population with India then the Indian lower house would have about 47,000 MPs, that’s how over represented we are.
There are 166 TDs in Dail Eireann.
Shockingly, over 25% (42) of them are direct relatives of former or current TDs. According to a Drivetime report during the week nothing like this exists in any other Western democracy. Here’s some further breakdown.
A massive 28 of the 42 are Fianna Fail TDs followed by Fine Gael with 12 and 2 from Labour.
24 are sons or daughters of TDs – 15 Fianna Fail, 8 Fine Gael and 1 Labour.
There are three TDs in the Fianna Fail Kitt family as was their father before them.
Fianna Fail TD, Mary O’Rourke is the daughter of a TD and sits in the Dail with her brother Brian Lenihan and two nephews Brian and Conor.
The three most senior people in government, Brian Cowen, Mary Coughlin and Brian Lenihan all inherited their seats from their father.
And people wonder why Ireland is run like a mafia.
The British government has always paid a subvention to fund the operation of Irish coastal navigational systems.
The British shipping industry has now asked the British government to end this subvention which amounts to €13 million per annum.
If the subvention does ends the Irish Lights Commissioners will have to make up the difference by extra charges for those using Irish ports or by government funding.
Personally, I’ve always thought it odd that Ireland, as a sovereign state, would allow another state to fund a service that rightly should be its own responsibility. The British shipping industry is right, the practice should end.
On the same day I submitted a formal complaint to the European Parliament regarding the criminalisation of those who sell Mass cards without the permission of a Catholic bishop I also wrote to the local bishop here in Cobh for permission to sell Mass cards.
I received a curious, minimalist, reply yesterday saying that as a commencement order has not yet been issued the Act remains inoperative.
Fair enough, I’ll check that out with the relevant department next week. The case continues.
Irish Times letter.
Madam,
By George! Maybe the lovely Lee will sort out the banks.
Yours, etc,
MARGUERITE PHELAN,
Nutley Avenue,
Dublin 4.
I received a reply from Marian Harkin, MEP, today regarding my formal complaint on the issue of the criminalisation of those who sell Mass cards without the permission of a Catholic bishop.
Ms. Harkin agrees with my stance on the matter and has indicated that she will write to the Attorney General for his view and get back to me.
I received no acknowledgement to my petition to the European Parliament on the matter so I sent off a reminder to them today.
I received an interesting link from John Devitt, Chief Executive of Transparency Ireland, regarding the launch of an anti corruption petition by members of the European Parliament.
To date the petition has received only 4,404 signatures but it’s a start. I note that one of the MEPs involved in the campaign is Fianna Fail MEP Eoin Ryan.
The US Army has rejected allegations that its troops have been trying to convert Afghans to Christianity (Gavin’s Blog).
The report alleges that troops are handing out bibles which have been translated into local Afghan languages.
Such activity is against army regulations but listening to the most senior US Army chaplin at Bagram military base one could be forgiven for thinking that this regulation is largely ignored. Here’s some of what he had to say:
“There’ll never be anybody like Jesus, he’s the one and only, he’s the Messiah. Those Special Forces guys, they hunt men, we do the same thing as Christians we hunt people for Jesus. Hunt em down; get the hound of heaven after them to get them in the Kingdom, right? That’s what we do, that’s our business.”
See here for a discussion on the matter on Al-Jazeera news.
See here for an account of what happens to unbelievers in the US Army.
Letters on the proposed blasphemy law in today’s Irish Times.
Madam,
Considering that every judge in the Irish judicial system has taken a religious oath asking God to “direct and sustain” them in their work, how can any atheist accused of blasphemy ever be offered a fair trial?
Yours, etc,
GAVIN TOBIN,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.
Madam,
The Irish Government’s proposal to make blasphemy punishable by law seems curious to those British parliamentarians, like myself, who fought successfully to bury this relic of the Star Chamber.
The archaic common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in the UK just a year ago, in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.
With all-party support, we relied not only on the advice of the Law Commission, but on the wise judgment of the Irish Supreme Court in the Corway case.We had the support not only of English PEN and writers and artists, but also of the British clergy.
There was wide recognition of the chilling effect of these offences on the right to freedom of expression, and of the divisive nature and effects of retaining the offences in our modern plural society where one person’s religion is another person’s blasphemy, and where British Muslims were campaigning to extend blasphemy offences to protect Islam (a move rejected by our court in the Satanic Verses case in which I acted for the publisher of Salman Rushdie’s novel).
Parliament has also enacted a narrow offence in the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 of incitement to religious hatred. This applies only to threatening (as distinct from abusive or insulting) words or behaviour, and places the burden on the prosecution to prove specific criminal intent.
I drafted and Parliament approved section 29J (the so-called “English PEN clause”) which provides as follows: “Protection of freedom of expression:
“Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.”
To those of us who admire Ireland’s constitutional and legal system, it would be bizarre and perverse if the Irish Government and legislature were now to resurrect the Star Chamber offences and make them punishable by law.
It would also provide an unfortunate example to the rest of the free world at a time when many Arab and African states are pressing for a new international crime of religious defamation.
Yours, etc,
ANTHONY LESTER,
(Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC),
Liberal Democrat Peer,
Blackstone Chambers,
Temple,
London, England.