TWO YEARS ON FROM ENDA KENNY'S 'SEISMIC SHIFT'

 LETTER TO OUR EDITORS

Ballyhea

Co Cork

June 25^th 2014

Dear Sir/Madam;

'Lions led by donkeys'; nearly a century on, that's how the British infantry (including tens of thousands of Irish) and its officer corps are remembered from the First World War.

I wonder, a century from now how will we and the current Irish political leadership be remembered?

Cast your mind back two years ago, to June 28th 2012 and yet another Eurozone summit meeting, the short statement issued at its conclusion on the separation of bank debt from sovereign debt, which included the following: 'The Eurogroup will examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with the view of further improving the sustainability of the well-performing adjustment programme.'

 

Remember Enda Kenny's 'seismic shift' boast – ‘I’m a hard grafter and, as some of them found out, they shouldn’t tangle with me too often’? Remember Eamon Gilmore's 'game-changer' bombast?

Two years on, what has shifted, what has changed?

For starters, we've had Michael Noonan's acclaimed Promissory Notes deal, Notes Michael himself described in an RTE interview as ‘illegal, totally' but which now sees that €25bn of disputed debt transformed to sovereign bonds. 

The first of those bonds are sold this year, €500,000,000, that money then destroyed by the Irish Central Bank; €500,000,000 a year in fact for the next five years, borrowed and burned, then €1,000,000,000 a year for the following five years, €2,000,000,000 a year for eight years and finally, in 2032, the last bond, €1,500,000,000. 

A total of €25,000,000,000 that had been used at the behest of the EC/ECB to bail out two bust banks, now borrowed by this broke and broken country and burned at the behest of that same EC/ECB, all set up by a compliant, obeisant Kenny/Gilmore government without even a murmur of protest. They didn't even ask, never mind confront.

Then there's the vaunted ESM from which we were to receive the billions refund of the 'legacy' bank-debt arising from the June 2012 statement - what has actually happened there? Well the fund has been established and Ireland has already contributed a €1bn share to that, which of course we also had to borrow and on which we are now paying interest. What have we received? How much 'legacy' debt relief? Not a single cent.

The actual legacy of this government, the legacy this generation leaves to those who will follow us, is debt piled on debt, 40 years of debt-slavery to our new European masters, all uncontested.

In Ballyhea and Charleville we have been campaigning since March 6th 2011 against this debt imposition, this sovereign surrender. This Sunday in Charleville at 10.30am, week 174, we're joined by three of our recently elected MEPs, Luke Ming Flanagan, Nessa Childers and Marian Harkin. New leaders, same cause; lions needed.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

TWO BIG LIES ON THE PROMISSORY NOTE DEAL

In the course of debates with the Fine Gael candidates during the recent election the same two points were raised again and again by all three of Seán Kelly, Deirdre Clune and Simon Harris (Phil Prendergast of Labour didn’t bring it up), two points that both Fine Gael and Labour spokespeople also brought up again and again over the last year and more. 

Both fall well short of the full truth.

‘THE PROMISSORY NOTES ARE GONE’

In February last year, and in his own words of explanation to the Dáil recently, Michael Noonan ‘exchanged’ the Promissory Notes for Sovereign Bonds. Only the actual notes – the paper on which was written that debt – was destroyed; the remaining €25bn debt on the Promissory Notes remained exactly as it was, in full. So yes, the notes themselves are gone; the debt they were covering is still there, every cent.

‘WE SAVED THE COUNTRY €20bn’

If you buy an item reduced from €30 to €10 you have saved yourself €20; if you buy that same €30 item for €10 but have the remaining €20 paid over the next three years with interest, such that it will now cost an additional €60, that is NOT a saving, it’s deferred payment. 

In essence that is what happened in the Noonan Promissory Notes deal. As explained above we have exactly the same debt; under the old arrangement the bulk of that would be paid over the next ten years; under the Noonan deal those payments for the next ten years are reduced but they are then loaded on for the following 30 years.

In total, over the 40-yr lifetime of the Noonan deal, the €25bn becomes an estimated €72bn, some of which reverts to ourselves (complicated story…) but around €60bn goes to private investors. Possibly even many of the same people whom we are forced to bail out when Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide were issued with the original €31bn.

THE QUESTION FINE GAEL REFUSED TO ANSWER

None of the three candidates would answer this simple, straight-forward question – what happens to the money when the first of those Noonan sovereign bonds is sold in the next few months, all €500,000,000 of it? What happens to the €500,000,000 similarly raised next year, and the year after and the year after and the year after? What happens to all €25,000,000,000 thus raised in the coming years?

The answer: It will be burned.  A near bankrupt country borrowing billions that were used to bail out two bust banks, then burning those billions - it's an obscenity.

Fianna Fáil/Greens/PDs broke this country; Fine Gael/Labour are breaking its people.

I'm now out of the picture nationally; I just hope our various journalists in print/radio/TV continue to ask this question, and no longer allow those Fine Gael and Labour spokespeople away with what they know is simply untrue.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

FROM THE MEP ELECTION CAMPAIGN TRAIL

From the campaign trail, a number of major issues that have come up repeatedly. This is my position on them. I want to make clear; everyone working with me on this campaign doesn't agree with me 100% on everything I say and do. We have our differences of opinion on policies and on approach; mine is to be blunt and as honest as I can in answering every question put to me. I'm told it doesn't get people elected. Fine. I'd prefer NOT to be elected than to be elected and have people accuse me afterwards of having misled them.

WIND TURBINES AND OVERHEAD POWER LINES

Not another inch of overhead power lines, nor indeed even one other major commercial wind-turbine forest, nor any more ‘planting’. They are a blight on the landscape, an eyesore. 

When the power-lines are being costed, and as with so much else in this country over the decades, it’s always done on the most short-sighted basis – money. Not included in that costing is the long-term effect on tourism but just as important – perhaps even more important – the long-term effect on those who live in the area. I'm not talking just about the health effect, and there are arguments to and fro over that; I'm talking about the spiritual effect. Those of us of a certain age were brought up enjoying one kind of countryside, those growing up with these monstrosities on their horizon are growing up gazing on quite another. What price the difference?

Then there are the wind-turbine forests. We have enough of them. We do need to meet our 2020 renewable energy targets – indeed we should be looking to far exceed them, and not because the EU have said so but because it’s the right thing to do. But there are other ways, less intrusive ways, more reliable ways, all developing in a fast-changing world.

We need also to look at saving energy, in the transport area and in the heating area. Passive homes, retrofitting on a major scale – this is all long-term thinking, should be done now.

ABORTION

The ugliest word in the dictionary, leads to the ugliest arguments, the most vile and vitriolic of exchanges. In the recent debate leading to changed legislation following the X-case I stayed out of that debate. I had and have my opinions but they were nobody’s business but my own. I accept however that is no longer the case, that many people have a genuine concern about how I might vote should the subject arise in an EU context. Herewith then, my thinking, and undoubtedly a host of lost votes!

The only occasion on which I can foresee abortion arising in the EU is as an equal rights/civil right issue. I would vigorously oppose any such imposition on Ireland. 

We have been too slow as a nation to introduce and implement equal rights and civil rights legislation over the decades in this country and in that respect our membership of the EEC/EU has been a benefit – they haven’t so much shown us the way as dragged us kicking and screaming into becoming a truly equal society. However, I believe there are already far too many areas in which the EU is now dictating policy that properly belongs to a sovereign government, far too many diktats coming down from on high on issues minor and major. 

Abortion is an area in which we should remain sovereign; this is an issue for Ireland to decide, on its own.

I have further been asked if I would work to reverse that recent legislation on the above-mentioned X-case. This could happen only if I stood for the Dáil – that won’t happen, now or ever. I'm giving politics this one shot; win or lose, that’s it.

Again, however, I can see why people would want to know where I stand on this, even if there IS nothing I can do about that legislation in an official capacity (if elected as an MEP) one way or the other. 

Over the years I've argued many an issue with my family – my mother, my four sisters, my wife, my daughter, my father, my four brothers, my son, all strong-minded strong-willed independent people – and with my many friends. Abortion has figured occasionally in those discussions. We’ve agreed on various topics, we’ve disagreed, but we’ve always got on, respected each other’s thinking and each other’s decisions. 

To sum up my thoughts on such a complex issue is difficult but has to be done.

There are lots of things I don’t know for certain, which is why dogmatism has never appealed to me. I don’t know if there is a concerned God who watches over everything we do, I don’t know if there’s not; I had all religion battered out of me by the Christian Brothers by the age of 14 (they weren’t too keen on the kind of questions I was asking, not in the 60s) so content myself now with my own spiritualism, my own wonder at and appreciation of the world around us.

I don’t know when life begins. I do know I don’t like to see it deliberately ended. There is life in a foetus, helpless life that needs nourishing and protection. Everything possible should be done to bring that life to the birth stage. 

I believe in the equal right to life of the mother and child. If there is a threat to the life of the mother there should be timely medical intervention to save her life. Every effort should also be made to save the life of the child; if this fails, it fails. Life hurls such tragedies at us and in this family, we haven’t been immune.

I can see why many people believe that such a threat to a mother’s life should include suicide. I don’t agree. I believe this then makes the life of the unborn foetus subservient to the life of the mother. 

Even for the most stable, mentally strong woman, abortion is surely a highly emotive decision. A suicidal prospective mother is already suffering serious emotional stress. An abortion will add to that stress.

In the situation where a suicide threat is deemed real (and I can’t imagine a situation where a professional is going to put her/his entire career on the line by saying ‘Ah, I don’t believe you’), the unborn foetus is aborted, its life ended. But how do we know the threat was real?

On the other hand, if the suicide clause is removed there will certainly be cases where a suicidal prospective mother will take her own life, in which case – even allowing for the fact that very often no-one really knows what triggers such a drastic decision – those of us who would push to have that clause removed stand accused of helping to cause this death.

It’s a lose/lose scenario, a most divisive argument and for very obvious reasons. But there it is. I know that in a situation where I'm going to need every vote I can get this will cost me but given that I'm coming out of nowhere I believe it’s only right people should know who I am.

GAY MARRIAGE

Another thorny issue and another divisive argument, one in which again I'm going to lose votes, maybe even votes I might have gained in the above argument. Again though this has to be said, brought into the open.

I don’t believe in levels of equal rights – either we’re all equal or we’re not. I believe we are. Not all the same, which is why there are different sexual orientations, but all equal. This includes the right to marriage and the right to adopt  for all.

I strongly believe that alongside this legislation, the rights of the father should be made equal to the rights of the mother in the case of their own children.

So there we are. If those are your do-or-die issues for your favoured MEP candidate I'm probably dead in the water and either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael will take a second seat in the Ireland South constituency, or Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour will take one each. If you take a wider view and prioritise the issues on my manifesto, the issues I see as critical to a new and better Europe and a new and better world, I have a chance. 

But I won’t hide, and I won’t pretend. It was never my way, never will be. If I'm going to be elected, it will be on an honest platform.

Diarmuid O'Flynn for MEP - Campaign launch speech April 23rd 2014

INTRODUCTION

I'm Diarmuid O'Flynn from Ballyhea

Entering the race for MEP

For over three years we have marched without pause

Peeling the onion in Ireland's cause

Peeling the onion? Yes, the EU skin

Seven layers of institutional admin

THE COMMISSION, initiators of legislation

28-member Cabinet with the power to crush nations

And they've used it. Unelected though they may be

Theirs is the power to force austerity

On Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain

While they, in their towers, are immune from the pain.

THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL, a gathering of Heads of State

The guiding lights, the good and the great

Who have steered this ship onto the reef

Ran us aground, marooned, no relief

A SECOND COUNCIL, as though one isn't enough

Councils of Ministers, each with their own brief

THE COURT OF AUDITORS checks the EU's budget amounts

Not since 1993 have they signed off the accounts

THE COURT OF JUSTICE has three layers of its own

Layer inside layer, how this monster has grown

Then there's the EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

Bean-counting number-crunchers of the highest rank.

Finally, the PARLIAMENT, that for which I now stand

Sits in Brussels and Strasbourg, the people's brass band.

And here's the rub

Only one of those layers is directly elected

All of those others are largely selected

Yet the Parliament, that democratic institution

Cannot initiate legislation

It needs to change

We need to rearrange

The entire edifice

And get back to the coal-face

Too many layers

Too many players

Too much bureaucracy

Too little democracy

Banks, bailouts, bonds, budgets, unelected bureaucrats

Bullying and blackmailing us into assuming a debt

That is not ours

Was never ours

Will never justly BE ours

Is this the Europe we want?

Is this the Europe we joined?

Is this the Europe we want to take into the future?

No, no and no again.

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

Seven layers of administration

Three layers of legislation

Three European Presidents

Three layers of justice

Two centres of Parliament

Two European Councils

All with

One thing in common

All are asleep at the wheel.

AND WHILE THEY WERE SLEEPING...

85 people

Have the same aggregate wealth

As half the world's population

That's 3.5 billion people

How did that happen?

The world's wealthiest individuals

And the world's wealthiest global corporations

Pay little or no tax.

How did that happen?

Banks are bailed out

Private investor losses paid out

Those costs and losses

Of our new copper-bosses

All covered by us, the people.

How did THAT happen?

The most vulnerable people

In the most vulnerable nations

Are subsidising the healthiest

And wealthiest

How the hell did all this happen?

It happened while they in the various EU layers were sleeping

It happened while WE who helped put them there were sleeping

Deregulation

Privatisation

Globalisation

Our legislators

Facilitated all this

Our legislators

Legislated all this

Some with eyes wide shut

Some with eyes wide open

A WORDY TALE

Pythagoras' theorem: 24 words

Lord's Prayer: 66 words

Archimedes' Principle: 67 words

10 Commandments: 179 words

Gettysburg address: 286 words

Proclamation of the Irish Republic: 475 words US Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words

EU regulation No. 1591/87 laying down quality standards for cabbages, Brussels sprouts, ribbed celery, spinach and plums: 5,091

While the seven layers of the EU onion

Distracted themselves

And asphyxiated business

With layer after layer

Of petty regulations

Others were using their

Power and money

To affect and effect

Major legislation

And thus

Were the floodgates opened

Thus did a tsunami of greed

Engulf the world

Surfing that wave

Are the 85

Swamped by that wave

The 3.5 billion

And more

CLOSING THE GATES

It's not too late

To slam shut that gate

We've still got time

To set the world back in rhyme

All those attacks on us?

Well let's lay a tax on them

The Financial Transaction Tax - the FTT

A small fee

On the most toxic transactions

Taking back a slice from the greedy faction

The tax-avoiding global corporations?

Close those loopholes with global taxation

Close cooperation

Among the world's super/supra-nations

For the benefit of all

That's all

That's needed

The selfish interests of the powerful few

Now supersedes

The needs

Of the people.

Thus the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership - you've not heard of this?

The TTIP, twixt the EU/USA

Partnership yes, of power and money

The greedy grabbing ever more of the honey

A corporate charter, with a court of their own

Where profit is law

And people are fodder

Fed to the gods

The euro and dollar

And all of this has happened

Under the blind watch

Of a succession of EU administrations

The elected, the selected

They have led us to this

Sleep-walked and sleep-talked us

To the edge of the abyss

DESPAIR, SUICIDE - by-products of Austerity

A black cloud

Hovers over our nation

The black dog

Takes up his station

On the shoulders of so many

And they die

By their own hand,

They die.

Sorrow and despair

Utter despair

Ideas and impressions

Clouded depressions

Inane position

Devoid of ambition

Emergency Exit

So many taking that emergency exit

Not because they want to die

But because they can no longer live

Long before that final fateful act

Life has been sucked from them

EMIGRATION

We thought it was history

Consigned to the past

But it's back

With a bang

Not felt since the Great Hunger

Younger and younger

Degrees in their fists

Despair in their hearts

They leave

Families fractured

Communities sundered

A nation fragmented

Again

And why?

This despair

This destruction

This death

At our doors

This mass departure

From our shores

Why?

The mistakes of others

The greed of others

Private losses

Imposed by unelected corporate bosses

On sovereign peoples

Right across Europe

With the collusion of our politicians

The WRONG people blamed

The WRONG cause diagnosed

The WRONG cure prescribed

Leading to one conclusion

We have been electing the WRONG people

The Irish people

Didn't collapse Lehman's

Didn't design the euro

Didn't pour hundreds of billions into Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugal/Ireland

'It's a fiscal problem!' cried the Commission and ECB chorus;

'Austerity the cure!'

It was a financial problem of course

Banks at the core

BAILOUT FOR WHO?

Ireland did NOT get any bailout

Shout that out from the roof-tops

With your voice-tops

IRELAND DID NOT GET A BAILOUT!

The IMF moves into a country in trouble

Lays down its conditions

Asset fire-sales

Privatisation

Deprivation

With cuts in services

But always, always

Bondholders burned

Creditors taking a share of the burden

Until Ireland

The IMF were joined by

The Commission

The ECB

The unholy trinity

THE TROIKA

One aim they had

One aim alone

Bail out the banks

No bond left behind

No loss imposed on those who

Blindly

Greedily

Voraciously

Had fed the Irish property boom

Had fed ON the Irish property boom

But now

As the whole thing went BOOM and burst

They would still profit

Down to the last cent on the last ‘coupon’

Why?

Because the ECB decided so

Because the Commission decided so

Because Merkel and Sarkozy decided so

And because our own government

Cowed and coward

Paralysed by fear

Bowed to the pressure

The abuse of political muscle by the Commission

The abuse of financial muscle by the ECB

And who would cover all those losses?

Why, the people, the already-suffering Irish people

Bailout? Oh bailout alright

But not of the people

And you can sing this in verse

From the highest steeple

Europe didn’t bail out Ireland

It was the exact reverse.

STANDING FOR ELECTION

And so I am here

Standing and running

Simultaneously

(Which is kind of a contradiction!)

The parties of record are on the trail

Fleets of jeeps

Custom-painted

Bottomless budgets

Subsidised by us all

Ads, posters, billboards galore

Strategies, vote management

They know the score.

And the promises, the promises, the promises

In Cork and Kerry, in Carlow and Kilkenny

They’ll promise the earth but ‘twill be no surprise

If all you get is mud in your eyes

As so often before

“Isn't that what you tend to do during an election?”

Pat Rabbitte telling it like it is

Shameless admission

But after the fact

After the false promises of the last election

Landed him with a fat Ministry

Landed us with all this misery

If you're happy

With the status quo

If you're happy

With how Europe has brought us this low

If you're happy

With our current MEPs

If you're happy

With how they’ve watched us brought to our knees

No fiery speech in the Parliament

No public challenge

Save from two – Joe Higgins and Paul Murphy

Joe’s replacement

No defying the native whip

Loyalty to party

Above all else

While paying lip

Service to the people

Again, bar one – Nessa Childers

She paid for her conviction, didn’t she?

I want this job

I want to do full-time

For the next five years

What I've been doing part-time

For the last three years

But this time

With a mandate

A mandate from you, the people.

My first, my last, my only loyalty

Is to you, the people.

ALL the people

Left, right, centre

Party, non-party

Regardless of race, religion, colour or creed

We are all people

We are all in this together

We must all work together.

I make three promises

I will work

I will work

I will work

And so

Come May 23rd

I ask for your vote.

 Campaign Website click here