Can we trust Fine Gael?

Liam Byrne

truebluedub wrote: »

Liam Byrne - And what about the proposal of cultural genocide? And I've already indicated I'm not FF.

Where's this "cultural genocide" ? I did a search for that dramatic phrase in the articles and got no result.

If you're talking about the erosion of culture (doesn't sound as dramatic as using the word "genocide", but it's probably more appropriate) then once again you have to look at the broader picture rather than single out any one group as being victimised.

The original Enniscorthy article complained about the state that the prom was in after they left; if "they" had been a stag party or a student rag week or whatever, the report would have been almost identical.

Fact is that you or I would be expected to leave a place as we found it, and so should they.

Once upon a time, you could walk farmland or camp places; now you can't.

Nowadays, people have to pay a small fortune if they want to park at a seaside, or go to town shopping - either for their car or their campsite. Housing estates are built without play areas for children; people are expected to pay membership to sports clubs or sports grounds in order to do what they used to do for free in a field out the back or in a public area.

Small markets are squeezed out by developments, lack of green-field sites and stall and parking charges. Farmers' (and communities) cultures are being eroded.

Why should these elements of "culture" be ignored ?

I'm not saying that ANY of this is right, but it's happening to EVERYONE.

And providing facilities for EVERYONE is right; but objecting if one group is given more leeway than others is not racism. Why give free facilities to one group and charge others ?

I've to pay for my house and its site. If I want to take a caravan anywhere, I've to pay for that, too. Why should anyone be any different ?

And objecting if those people - regardless of WHO they are - abuse the facilities and disrespect others is also not racism.

As for foreigners - if I wanted to go to work in Spain, I'd have to pay for my own language teachers for me and my kids (if they existed). The Spanish people won't pay extra taxes so that I can choose to work there.

That's not racism either - it's a fact.

Treat like with like - across the board, good and bad - and you have true equality.

truebluedub

meglome wrote: »

It's not racist to point out that something like 20% of the prison population are travellers and they only make up a few percent of the population. I have no problem with travellers but the facts are as they are. There's a big difference between someone not being politically correct enough for the bleeding hearts and being a racist. There seems to be some confusion of the two here. Personally I'm against racism and overbearing political correctness.

truebluedub wrote: »

How do we demonstrate racism? A scientific paper by Dr. Amanda Hanyes, Dr. Eoin Devereux and Dr. Michael Breen has shown that several frames of racist discourse generally exist. This [font=&quot]is available at [/font][font=&quot]http://www.ul.ie/sociology/docstore/workingpapers/wp2004-03.pdf. While the frames mentioned are used to refer to asylum seekers and refugees they can for the most part be generalised to other groups.[/font]
The frames:
Illegitimacy
Threat to National or Local Integrity
Social Deviancy
Criminal Element
Economic Threat

One or more of these frames are clearly in each of the articles I quoted in the original post and with the plausible exception of the Varadkar one they are not being filtered by a FF spin.

truebluedub

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Where's this "cultural genocide" ? I did a search for that dramatic phrase in the articles and got no result.

If you're talking about the erosion of culture (doesn't sound as dramatic as using the word "genocide", but it's probably more appropriate) then once again you have to look at the broader picture rather than single out any one group as being victimised.

The original Enniscorthy article complained about the state that the prom was in after they left; if "they" had been a stag party or a student rag week or whatever, the report would have been almost identical.

Fact is that you or I would be expected to leave a place as we found it, and so should they.

Once upon a time, you could walk farmland or camp places; now you can't.

Nowadays, people have to pay a small fortune if they want to park at a seaside, or go to town shopping - either for their car or their campsite. Housing estates are built without play areas for children; people are expected to pay membership to sports clubs or sports grounds in order to do what they used to do for free in a field out the back or in a public area.

Small markets are squeezed out by developments, lack of green-field sites and stall and parking charges. Farmers' (and communities) cultures are being eroded.

Why should these elements of "culture" be ignored ?

I'm not saying that ANY of this is right, but it's happening to EVERYONE.

And providing facilities for EVERYONE is right; but objecting if one group is given more leeway than others is not racism. Why give free facilities to one group and charge others ?

I've to pay for my house and its site. If I want to take a caravan anywhere, I've to pay for that, too. Why should anyone be any different ?

And objecting if those people - regardless of WHO they are - abuse the facilities and disrespect others is also not racism.

As for foreigners - if I wanted to go to work in Spain, I'd have to pay for my own language teachers for me and my kids (if they existed). The Spanish people won't pay extra taxes so that I can choose to work there.

That's not racism either - it's a fact.

Treat like with like - across the board, good and bad - and you have true equality.

Following the citation of two articles I had this:

truebluedub wrote: »

Now here we have two clear statements one rhetorically proposing genocide the second as we shall see leading to proposal of what is legally deemed genocide. McVeigh writing in 2008 has shown that much of this kind of rhetoric is informed by a genocidal logic using the genocide convention from the UN (convention available here http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm) in a nutshell the attempt to erode the travellers separate ethnicity amounts to genocide from a legal perspective. This can be seen when we take opposition to traveller halting sites into account:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/1105/traveller.html

Liam Byrne

truebluedub wrote: »

Following the citation two articles I had this:

That was only one part of my reply. Any comment on the rest, considering that I expanded to say that lots of aspects of lots of culture are being eroded ?

BTW, "genocide" is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"

Whatever about the destruction of their - and our - cultures, where's the proof that it's "deliberate and systematic", and where's the proof that it's more deliberate and systematic than any erosion of any other way-of-life, culture or traditions on this island ?

My mum used to have a "culture" of leaving the back door open and anyone was welcome. That's long-gone nowadays, and it's a shame.

But was it "deliberate and systematic" by the powers-that-be who had an objection to that "cead mile failte" culture ?

truebluedub

Liam Byrne wrote: »

That was only one part of my reply. Any comment on the rest, considering that I expanded to say that lots of aspects of lots of culture are being eroded ?

BTW, "genocide" is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group"

Alright, firstly as a few posters challenge this contention let's look at the construction of travellers as a distinct ethnic group.

[FONT=&quot]Yet one writer, debating the Famine origins and [/FONT][FONT=&quot]ethnic distinctiveness [/FONT][FONT=&quot]of Irish Travellers, has gone so far as to argue that Irish Travellers did not figure as a distinctive group among the wretched and subsistence-based in nineteenth century Ireland. They were, she argues, simply one among several subsistence-based groups forced into vagrancy and begging in order to survive (McLoughlin 1994:72). To argue thus is to ignore the fact that Irish Travellers have long [/FONT][FONT=&quot]been regarded [/FONT][FONT=&quot]and, more importantly still, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]regarded themselves [/FONT][FONT=&quot]as a distinctive minority group. As Gammon-speakers, and as a group with well established genealogical linkages and a whole range of distinctive cultural practices, they perceived themselves as a people set apart from other sectors of Irish society. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]...[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Rao has defined as ‘peripatetics’, a group not dissimilar from ‘commercial nomads’, ‘endogamous nomads who are largely non-primary producers or extractors, and whose principal resources are constituted by other human populations’ (Rao 1987). Applied to Irish Travellers, this definition helps circumvent some remaining difficulties involved in categorising Travellers in a society with such large subaltern groups as nineteenth-century Ireland clearly had. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]...[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Nationalism here was fused with Social Darwinism in such a way as to suggest that there was literally no room for Travellers within the Irish nation-state. ‘Tinkers’ were considered a ‘dirty’ [/FONT][FONT=&quot]and ‘rightless’ people[/FONT][FONT=&quot], and as such were not entitled to a position within the material and moral structures of the nationstate. Irish Travellers, like Gypsies in continental Europe, were also prone to the lowering of the thresholds of tolerance that separated them out from settled communities in the newly emerging Irish nation. As the sensibilities of the latter became more refined and bourgeois, their tolerance of ‘tinkers’, like their tolerance of the stench and filth which they associated with the poor, especially with ‘tinkers’, was similarly lowered (Corbin 1986; Elias 1992). The very presence of ‘tinkers’ in this modernising Ireland was sometimes a source of ‘astonishment’ to these sectors of Irish society. It intimidated their sensibilities, not least because so much in Traveller behaviour, especially their ‘ribald manners’, their vagrancy, their lack of respect for Church, for state and literally for [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the law of the land[/FONT][FONT=&quot], seemed to resemble more the habits of those living in Europe’s far-flung colonial peripheries in India and colonial Africa, than those of an emergent nation-state at the back door to ‘civilised’ Europe. In Ireland’s case also, as indeed in mainland Europe, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a period when history was seen as something ‘fixed’ or ‘settled’. Viewed thus history comprised concrete, albeit discrete, dramas enacted between ‘settled society’, on the one hand, and the forces of ‘nature’ and physical landscape, on the other (Richards 1994:114). In this scenario ‘tinkers’ were considered much closer to the forces of nature and anarchy, than to culture and social progress. Although they clearly lived [/FONT][FONT=&quot]within[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Irish society, they were progressively perceived as apart from it, as social ‘pariahs’ and ‘parasites’ who ‘marauded’ on settled society and committed a whole range of petty crimes [/FONT][FONT=&quot]against it[/FONT][FONT=&quot]. Having constructed ‘tinkers’ as near ‘savage’, or uncivilised [/FONT][FONT=&quot]subjects[/FONT][FONT=&quot], it was only a matter of time before ‘settled’ Ireland would depict them as ‘expendable’. Like the nomadic Highlanders in Walter Scott’s Romantic narratives of Scottish history, ‘tinkers’ in Ireland at this time were regarded as historical subjects from a different place, and from a ‘barbaric’ epoch in the evolution of modern Ireland. Like Scottish Highlanders they too were perceived as a people who had to be hidden, or ‘used up’ if the narrative of modern Irish history was ever to proceed (Richards 1994:134). It was as if it was the [/FONT][FONT=&quot]destiny [/FONT][FONT=&quot]of ‘tinkers’ to be so ‘expended’, sacrificed or dispensed with, so that Irish history could progress.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]All of this clearly implied a geography of savagery and ‘uncivility’ which suggested those inhabiting the fringes of Irish society were the most ‘uncivilised’ of all. They were [/FONT][FONT=&quot]furthest out [/FONT][FONT=&quot]from the centres of civilization. The ‘tinkers’ from the west of Ireland, especially those who ‘invaded’ Dublin and other Irish cities from the late nineteenth century onwards, were considered the most savage of all, as ‘savage’ as the wild landscapes that once [/FONT][FONT=&quot]harboured [/FONT][FONT=&quot]them (Gwynn 1899; Synge 1974; Mac Laughlin 1997). Like the Roma in Europe’s other peripheral regions, they were considered the most ‘exotic’, and the most ‘backward’, because it was believed that they lived in places where nobody went ‘unless they literally lost their way’ (Guy 1975: 202). This suggests a marked overlapping between anti-Traveller racism, on the one hand, and Irish nationalism and rural fundamentalism, on the other, which goes back to the circumstances in which the Irish nation was conceived as a cradle for bourgeois and petty bourgeois respectability (Lloyd 1993:147). Irish nationalism, simply considered as a struggle for the control of territory, has always striven to control population and to produce an Irish ‘people’ as a political community. The Irish nation was a historical system of exclusions and dominations, a place where the patriarchal values of the rural bourgeoisie occupied pride of place, a place where Travellers were scarcely considered as citizens of the state.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mac Laughlin 1999 136-8 SOCIOLOGY Vol. 33 No. 1 February 1999 [/FONT]

Now to genocide, the proposal that was made was to remove the facilitation of the core element of their ethnic identity, the core element which separates traveller and settled, the nomadic lifestyle. If a party is proposing the removal of the facilitation of this lifestyle as a policy, then this is deliberate and if enacted systematic. As FG are not in a position of power they have not enacted these policies but have signaled intent of following what McVeigh calls the logic of genocide.

As for the other examples you pointed to they are not part of ethnic identity. On the point of language teaching: many Polish people send their childen to TEFL qualified teachers to learn English paying out of their own wage, I can't vouch for other groups because I don't know anybody from many other groupings (well Americans but they speak English anyway).

Liam Byrne

truebluedub wrote: »

Alright, firstly as a few posters challenge this contention let's look at the construction of travellers as a distinct ethnic group.

Why did you quote my post when talking about "challenging this contention" ?

I never said they weren't a distinct ethnic group.

What I said was that there is (a) no proof that their culture has been eroded more than anyone else's (b) no reason why they shouldn't respect the laws of the land - INCLUDING TRESPASS & LITTERING, which even the law-abiding, non anti-social travellers seem to ignore regularly.

Aside from that, I do 100% take your point about the Polish sending their children to TEFL teachers - and fair play to them; it's an indication on their part that they know an effort is required and they're prepared to make it.

But the fact is that our schools do have to have additional resources allocated to help foreign children, which doesn't happen abroad.

Inequalties like that - especially those that taxpayers need to fork out even more for - are one of the root causes of potential racism in the country.

InFront

truebluedub wrote: »

How do we demonstrate racism? A scientific paper by Dr. Amanda Hanyes, Dr. Eoin Devereux and Dr. Michael Breen has shown that several frames of racist discourse generally exist.

Then why don't you link to a paper where they actually state this, as opposed to what you did link to?
In that paper, the authors were using those frames to account for negative discourse pertaining to the coverage of asylum seekers, not racist discourse.
If you cannot understand that there is a difference here I have little hope for your contributions to this thread or any discussion of racism without bandying the term about too loosely and resorting to accusations of racism too easily.
Nevertheless, you did not expand upon that rather bizarre opening in your subsequent contribution so perhaps we will leave it there.

FG
Leaving aside Enda Kenny's racist joke which shows nothing more than that he is oblivious to the connotations of what he said

I take it you are completely unfamiliar with the story or are otherwise choosing to manipulate it badly.
Kenny was recounting a holiday in the company of two other Irish men when a Moroccan gentleman referred to the late Mr Patrice Lamumba by the "n word". He was remarking upon the irony of a black man using this term to describe a fellow black man. You or I could very easily have recounted the same thing as EK did, in private and familiar company.
I only describe that for the benefit of other readers why might now understand the absolute hopelessness of your contribution by starting your argument with such a ridiculously unremarkable reference to a non-issue. I am quite amused that you remember it.

Now here we have two clear statements one rhetorically proposing genocide

While I am not condoning the councillor's words, I think it was hyperbole when he said they should be taken out to sea and dumped there (or whatever words to that effect). Do you seriously think he was advocating genocide Very well, Fair enough, dumb thing of him to say, hardly genocidal though...next:

the second as we shall see leading to proposal of what is legally deemed genocide. McVeigh writing in 2008 has shown that much of this kind of rhetoric is informed by a genocidal logic using the genocide convention from the UN (convention available here http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm) in a nutshell the attempt to erode the travellers separate ethnicity amounts to genocide from a legal perspective.

This I just cannot accept as anything less than utter rubbish that borders on creative writing. Firstly, I take great issue with the words "legally deemed genocide". You have failed to substantiate this with any relevant link or back up any evidence of an example where Ms. Mitchell set about eradicating an entire culture. Do you seriously expect anybody to buy into this? Why don't you take it further in legal terms if you actually believe what you put forward on an anonymous internet forum to damage someone's good name?

Olivia Mitchell has been well known for her involvement with travellers issues, especially during her time in Dublin County and DL-Rathdown County Councils. I have never known any other TD to engage with travellers on so personal and comprehensive a level, and to involve and consult travellers so deeply in matters of policy relating to them. She is no stranger to travellers, having visited them when no other representative (including within FG) ever did and I can guarantee you understands better than any other Dail representative or candidate in the area the minutiae of issues like traveller family feuds in Dublin South and past records of various families within the constitueny.

This can be seen when we take opposition to traveller halting sites into account:

OM'S policy has always n relation to travellers can be summed up by maintaining demand for the following

• Housing travellers where there has been adequate consultation with residents in Dublin South prior to voting on the location for a halting site
• Where she believes the county manager, or another authority, or the county council has not taken fully into account the compatibility of traveller families being housed together (she is intimately aware of such intricacies), she has voted against such measures
• She maintains that instead of lumping all travellers into one area, there should be a more even distribution throughout the constituency so as best to integrate travellers with the community in South Dublin. In the past certain councillors used to propose certain sites which benefited their own careers in that the sites were away from their own bases -OM has opposed such strategical voting in the council chambers where she felt it was taking place
• In one instance where travellers were camping in Rathfarnham and had dumped cars in the Dodder, and where the mes they had created had resulted in national media attention, OM paid them a visit as a councillor. She told them there was a vote coming up in the council chambers, and could they give her a guarantee that if she voted in favour of a halting site programme, could they guarantee her they would not repeat the stated behaviour. They would not, and she could not therefore agree to vote in their favour without such a promise. I think that was entirely fair.

So you see, in fact OM's approach to travellers has been very considered, educated and involved. It is easy for politicians to pontificate on matters of principle, but i OM's case, she is involved in it, she knows the people and the families, and her judgement on these matters is second to none. You could not have picked a worse example to tag with racism or genocidal tendencies, and such accusations, I hope, can be seen for being complete nonsense and spin.

Also in this context we should consider FG's support for the citizenship referendum which as the authors (Haynes et al.) of the academic paper referred to earlier have shown played into the xenophobic discourse of "abuse of Irish citizenship."

I think you may be paraphrasing here, having just read that paper.
Given that Labour will either be supporting FG or FF in the next term, not being a party of sufficient support to stand alone, I don't think this can be an issue. Both parties supported the Citizenship Referendum and Labour will almost certainly be helping one or the other party into Government so I can't imagine this could be much of an issue.

So a question to FG supporters why should we trust you with this record of playing the race card,

I am worried that I have reached the end of your post and have come across no such evidence from you.

truebluedub

I was wondering when you'd show up.

InFront wrote: »

Then why don't you link to a paper where they actually state this, as opposed to what you did link to?
In that paper, the authors were using those frames to account for negative discourse pertaining to the coverage of asylum seekers, not racist discourse.
If you cannot understand that there is a difference here I have little hope for your contributions to this thread or any discussion of racism without bandying the term about too loosely and resorting to accusations of racism too easily.
Nevertheless, you did not expand upon that rather bizarre opening in your subsequent contribution so perhaps we will leave it there.

I removed the face image since I never like seeing them. Are you familiar with their outputs? You'll find that they are performing an analysis into xenophobic discourse the core part of this is the negative discourse which is confirmed in the paper I cited below, this being part of a larger project. I don't believe in imposing my own views on people so I gave people the frames so they could look at the articles and observe them from themselves. As for the veiled suggestion that what is relevant for Asylum seekers does not carry across to other groups it's called generalisation of a theoretical framework, you know the basic thing a first year undergraduate learns. A building block of any science, what people who don't fabricate case studies use. Credible academics and social scientists.

InFront wrote: »

I take it you are completely unfamiliar with the story or are otherwise choosing to manipulate it badly.
Kenny was recounting a holiday in the company of two other Irish men when a Moroccan gentleman referred to the late Mr Patrice Lamumba by the "n word". He was remarking upon the irony of a black man using this term to describe a fellow black man. You or I could very easily have recounted the same thing as EK did, in private and familiar company.
I only describe that for the benefit of other readers why might now understand the absolute hopelessness of your contribution by starting your argument with such a ridiculously unremarkable reference to a non-issue. I am quite amused that you remember it.

Which is why I qualified it and said that it didn't count and just showed that he was unable to recognise the connotations of that word.

InFront wrote: »

While I am not condoning the councillor's words, I think it was hyperbole when he said they should be taken out to sea and dumped there (or whatever words to that effect). Do you seriously think he was advocating genocide Very well, Fair enough, dumb thing of him to say, hardly genocidal though...next:

Even if hyperbole it is incitement to racial hatred.

InFront wrote: »

This I just cannot accept as anything less than utter rubbish that borders on creative writing. Firstly, I take great issue with the words "legally deemed genocide". You have failed to substantiate this with any relevant link or back up any evidence of an example where Ms. Mitchell set about eradicating an entire culture. Do you seriously expect anybody to buy into this? Why don't you take it further in legal terms if you actually believe what you put forward on an anonymous internet forum to damage someone's good name?

While not providing a link I provided a citation of an academic article (unless you're one of those people who can't even find a library this should be sufficient) as well as a UN declaration. Her statements speak for themselves demonstrating what is called the "logic of genocide".

InFront wrote: »

I think you may be paraphrasing here, having just read that paper.
Given that Labour will either be supporting FG or FF in the next term, not being a party of sufficient support to stand alone, I don't think this can be an issue. Both parties supported the Citizenship Referendum and Labour will almost certainly be helping one or the other party into Government so I can't imagine this could be much of an issue.
I am worried that I have reached the end of your post and have come across no such evidence from you.

First read it when I was an undergraduate in 1999 actually, it was on the reading list, yes I paraphrased but I provided a citation so anyone can look it up and verify it. Do you honestly believe my beliefs are dictated by Eamonn Gilmore, I don't just mindlessly follow the party line.
As for evidence - the articles? Qualitative evidence, they would be perfectly acceptable in a peer-reviewed publication and as indicated in one of my later posts OM was cited in them. I've cited academic literature also, I've presented evidence now you put up or shut up give me either media or peer reviewed articles that demonstrate that my argument is false. I gave a theory backed up by facts now you do likewise.

truebluedub

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Why did you quote my post when talking about "challenging this contention" ?

I never said they weren't a distinct ethnic group.

OK Mea Culpa on that, I lumped you in with several posters who had challenged it and tried to deal with them (and in error you) in one go, so sorry.

InFront

truebluedub wrote: »

Are you familiar with their outputs? You'll find that they are performing an analysis into xenophobic discourse the core part of this is the negative discourse which is confirmed in the paper I cited below, this being part of a larger project. I don't believe in imposing my own views on people so I gave people the frames so they could look at the articles and observe them from themselves.

Look to be honest, even if I thought that paper you cited was of any value, I'm not sure you got what I was telling you in my initial response to it. Those frames you referred to pertain to negative discourse in the media, not to racist discourse directly. Like I said there is a pretty obvious difference between racist discourse and negative discourse about asylum seekers... or at least the difference is obvious to most people.

If you are going to discuss FG engaging in negative discourse towards asylum seekers or any other particular ethnic group then maybe you should make that clear instead of basing your post on racism instead - racism being a separate issue.

As for the veiled suggestion that what is relevant for Asylum seekers does not carry across to other groups it's called generalisation of a theoretical framework, you know the basic thing a first year undergraduate learns.

What are you talking about.. what veiled suggestion.. read the post.

Which is why I qualified it and said that it didn't count and just showed that he was unable to recognise the connotations of that word.

This statement is completely daft, of course he can recognise the connotations of the word... where are you getting these half baked statements from?

Even if hyperbole it is incitement to racial hatred.

Racial hatred... genocide... when you bandy these terms about willy nilly they lose all meaning and fail to have any impact upon somebody reading that trash - save those terms for genuine emergencies.

While not providing a link I provided a citation of an academic article (unless you're one of those people who can't even find a library this should be sufficient) as well as a UN declaration. Her statements speak for themselves demonstrating what is called the "logic of genocide".

Seriously?
You are not bothering to read responses, I am convinced you are brushing over them and then constructing such dramatic responses of growing magnitude to form a hollow argument.

It's not anybody else's job to show you how to engage in debate, but look at how you are forming this argument for a second.
You link to a definition of genocide, then you link to an article referring to Olivia Mitchell and a private member's motion pertaining to trespass.
You fail completely in substantiating your claim by

• failing to make any connection between the PM bill and Genocidal Intent
• failing to make any connection between her voting history on halting sites and Genocidal Intent
• failing to objectively discuss any mitigating factors in her defense to afford you 'case' any credibility by demonstrating that you are not merely rattling off empty slurs as part of a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour party.
• failing to make yourself aware of OM's known reputation in the area of traveller's rights in South Dublin, involvement with community groups and her support for the construction of a halting site in her constituency - thus making your allegation of genocide all the more preposterous, if possible.

To most reasonable people, the very idea that you think Olivia Mitchell could be convicted of attempting to bring about a genocide smacks of crazy. I'm writing this response half out of frustration, half out of amusement.

I would advise that you make yourself aware of the recommendations of the 1963 Commission on Itinerancy and the recommendations of the 1983 Travelling People Reiew Body.

These recommendations form the core of OMs belief in permanent accommodation for travellers as opposed to holding them indefinitely in makeshift campsites without any permanent facilities such as waste management and electricity.
The whole point of the FG Private Members Bill to deal with makeshift camps was to support and finally implement the well established recommendations of the Commission on Itinerancy and the Travelling People Review Body! The fact that you call this genocidal when it is in fact considered best practice deomnstrates a severe lack of awareness on your behalf in relation to such matters.

Instead of inventing some allegations of genocide maybe you should read the recommendations for traveller housing.

As for evidence - the articles?

No. Please see above. The articles you provide do not establish any credible possibility of racism within Fine Gael. They are unfounded allegations and easy countered, largely on the basis of your lack of knowledge in relation to Olivia Mitchell, Dublin South, and the guidelines in relation to housing members of the travelling community. You fail to substantiate the link to racism or to genocide completely.

they would be perfectly acceptable in a peer-reviewed publication

Just to be clear, there is no issue with the articles - it's what you're attempting to prove that is problematic and would be totally unacceptable for academic publication. It is garbage.

I've presented evidence now you put up or shut up give me either media or peer reviewed articles that demonstrate that my argument is false. I gave a theory backed up by facts now you do likewise.

Are you for real? I am tempted to call BS on this. The thing is, I don't have an issue with the articles or the papers that you are referring to. It's the story you are trying to cobble together that makes no sense and is to be deconstructed and exposed for being untrue and uninformed.

As an aside, it is very easy to produce newspaper articles as you have done, and construct a theory out of pretty much nothing.

I could equally produce newspaper articles outlining Labours refusal to support a Fine Gael Bill providing for statutory rights for asylum seekers arriving in the state back in 1993, this was borne out of concern for the rights of asylum seekers and protecting them from racist abuse yet Labour rejected it. I could furthermore refer to Labour's Denis O'Callaghan and his opposition to traveller accomodation in Dublin South and call all of that 'genocidal'.
But for one thing, I don't believe it to be the case, and for another, I think I have the awareness to realise people just aren't so dumb as to actually buy any of it.

Nodin

Liam Byrne wrote: »

But the fact is that our schools do have to have additional resources allocated to help foreign children, which doesn't happen abroad.

Really?

In Israel, newcomers are given 6 months intensive teaching of Hebrew. Many American schools have actually dual-language programs where there are large numbers of spansish speaking students, whilst others have special bi-lingual assistance for same. The Brits likewise expend extra resources, as do the Germans. Even the French have 'reception' classes for non-French speakers starting in their public schools.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Inequalties like that - especially those that taxpayers need to fork out even more for - are one of the root causes of potential racism in the country.

......actually people spreading ignorance about such things is far more substantive a cause.

the_syco

OP: I stopped reading your post when you called travellers a seperate race. True, some may be english, but they are still (sadly) the same race as us.

After reading your post, I'm actually considering FG, as travellers, if given a chance, wreck my town, dump rubbish everywhere, and have attempted to prevent stuff being built until they were given money to "move on".

Liam Byrne

Nodin wrote: »

......actually people spreading ignorance about such things is far more substantive a cause.

And yet you chose to completely ignore the questions about whether many things about other cultures were being eroded ?

Like I said, there are 3 issues:

1) Many cultural aspects are being eroded
2) Expecting people to not litter and to pay their way is not racism
3) Supporting and condoning the minority that are involved in crime is not a way to gain support and credibility

Also, as raised above, travellers expecting and demanding to be paid to move on from somewhere that you or I would be moved on from in an instant is also wrong and is discrimination.

Nodin

Liam Byrne wrote: »

And yet you chose to completely ignore the questions about whether many things about other cultures were being eroded ?

Like I said, there are 3 issues:

1) Many cultural aspects are being eroded
2) Expecting people to not litter and to pay their way is not racism
3) Supporting and condoning the minority that are involved in crime is not a way to gain support and credibility

Confining it to those three points, those are valid enough views. I only took issue where you were in error.

truebluedub

the_syco wrote: »

OP: I stopped reading your post when you called travellers a seperate race. True, some may be english, but they are still (sadly) the same race as us.

After reading your post, I'm actually considering FG, as travellers, if given a chance, wreck my town, dump rubbish everywhere, and have attempted to prevent stuff being built until they were given money to "move on".

They are not a separate race they are a separate ethnicity. Race refers to a socially constructed group who class themselves as seperate, while ethnicity refer a socially constructed group who identify and are identified with each other.
Genetics show that in modernity the latter is actually more relevant.

hobochris

IMO this thread = FF propaganda.

It reminds me of the Elections in the U.S. where the republicans tried to slander Barack Obama in the public eye instead of highlighting what they intend doing for the people.

truebluedub

InFront wrote: »

Look to be honest, even if I thought that paper you cited was of any value, I'm not sure you got what I was telling you in my initial response to it. Those frames you referred to pertain to negative discourse in the media, not to racist discourse directly. Like I said there is a pretty obvious difference between racist discourse and negative discourse about asylum seekers... or at least the difference is obvious to most people.

If you are going to discuss FG engaging in negative discourse towards asylum seekers or any other particular ethnic group then maybe you should make that clear instead of basing your post on racism instead - racism being a separate issue.

I started to read the paper again to find proof of my point of view and I didn't have to go far:

Abstract
Immigration is a key feature in late capitalist societies, with some 20,000,000 displaced persons worldwide. This paper reports on coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in English-language newspapers worldwide, drawing on media content between 2003 and 2004. It analyses media
discourse on refugees and asylum seekers across the world, with a particular focus on deconstructing negative coverage. Five dominant negative frames in international media discourses are identified. These themes are examined in the context of theories of racism and
xenophobia to highlight their negative potential for displaced persons and attitudes towards them in their host countries. Theory is also employed to explore the potential utility of such negative
narratives for the media and social elites. The work being presented here is part of a much larger research project being undertaken by the authors at the University of Limerick. (For preliminary findings see Devereux and Breen, 2003 and 2004).

Of course now that your interpretation is shown to flawed you will use the wiggle room you left in your previous post and say something like you have no respect for findings of these academics, or anyone who is of the opposing view to yourself.

InFront wrote: »

What are you talking about.. what veiled suggestion.. read the post.

If I misread you fine if not then you believe these findings cannot be generalised from one group to another and therefore show no understanding of how theory works.

InFront wrote: »

This statement is completely daft, of course he can recognise the connotations of the word... where are you getting these half baked statements from?

His use of it. The term has been a form of racist abuse for donkey's years, if he thought it was ok to use it even in casual conversation, in a context where either journalists would here it or it could be reported to them, then he clearly does not recognise the connotations.

InFront wrote: »

Racial hatred... genocide... when you bandy these terms about willy nilly they lose all meaning and fail to have any impact upon somebody reading that trash - save those terms for genuine emergencies.

If you don't see the second largest party in this country playing the race card consistently as a problem then you are condoning their racism.

InFront wrote: »

Seriously?
You are not bothering to read responses, I am convinced you are brushing over them and then constructing such dramatic responses of growing magnitude to form a hollow argument.

It's not anybody else's job to show you how to engage in debate, but look at how you are forming this argument for a second.
You link to a definition of genocide, then you link to an article referring to Olivia Mitchell and a private member's motion pertaining to trespass.
You fail completely in substantiating your claim by

• failing to make any connection between the PM bill and Genocidal Intent
• failing to make any connection between her voting history on halting sites and Genocidal Intent
• failing to objectively discuss any mitigating factors in her defense to afford you 'case' any credibility by demonstrating that you are not merely rattling off empty slurs as part of a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour party.
• failing to make yourself aware of OM's known reputation in the area of traveller's rights in South Dublin, involvement with community groups and her support for the construction of a halting site in her constituency - thus making your allegation of genocide all the more preposterous, if possible.

To most reasonable people, the very idea that you think Olivia Mitchell could be convicted of attempting to bring about a genocide smacks of crazy. I'm writing this response half out of frustration, half out of amusement.

I would advise that you make yourself aware of the recommendations of the 1963 Commission on Itinerancy and the recommendations of the 1983 Travelling People Reiew Body.

These recommendations form the core of OMs belief in permanent accommodation for travellers as opposed to holding them indefinitely in makeshift campsites without any permanent facilities such as waste management and electricity.
The whole point of the FG Private Members Bill to deal with makeshift camps was to support and finally implement the well established recommendations of the Commission on Itinerancy and the Travelling People Review Body! The fact that you call this genocidal when it is in fact considered best practice deomnstrates a severe lack of awareness on your behalf in relation to such matters.

Instead of inventing some allegations of genocide maybe you should read the recommendations for traveller housing.


No. Please see above. The articles you provide do not establish any credible possibility of racism within Fine Gael. They are unfounded allegations and easy countered, largely on the basis of your lack of knowledge in relation to Olivia Mitchell, Dublin South, and the guidelines in relation to housing members of the travelling community. You fail to substantiate the link to racism or to genocide completely.
Just to be clear, there is no issue with the articles - it's what you're attempting to prove that is problematic and would be totally unacceptable for academic publication. It is garbage.

Thank you. You see you've made the argument for me. First look at post 36 I started demonstrating travellers being a separate group:

Yet one writer, debating the Famine origins and ethnic distinctiveness of Irish Travellers, has gone so far as to argue that Irish Travellers did not figure as a distinctive group among the wretched and subsistence-based in nineteenth century Ireland. They were, she argues, simply one among several subsistence-based groups forced into vagrancy and begging in order to survive (McLoughlin 1994:72). To argue thus is to ignore the fact that Irish Travellers have long been regarded and, more importantly still, regarded themselves as a distinctive minority group. As Gammon-speakers, and as a group with well established genealogical linkages and a whole range of distinctive cultural practices, they perceived themselves as a people set apart from other sectors of Irish society.
...
Rao has defined as ‘peripatetics’, a group not dissimilar from ‘commercial nomads’, ‘endogamous nomads who are largely non-primary producers or extractors, and whose principal resources are constituted by other human populations’ (Rao 1987). Applied to Irish Travellers, this definition helps circumvent some remaining difficulties involved in categorising Travellers in a society with such large subaltern groups as nineteenth-century Ireland clearly had.
...
Nationalism here was fused with Social Darwinism in such a way as to suggest that there was literally no room for Travellers within the Irish nation-state. ‘Tinkers’ were considered a ‘dirty’ and ‘rightless’ people, and as such were not entitled to a position within the material and moral structures of the nationstate. Irish Travellers, like Gypsies in continental Europe, were also prone to the lowering of the thresholds of tolerance that separated them out from settled communities in the newly emerging Irish nation. As the sensibilities of the latter became more refined and bourgeois, their tolerance of ‘tinkers’, like their tolerance of the stench and filth which they associated with the poor, especially with ‘tinkers’, was similarly lowered (Corbin 1986; Elias 1992). The very presence of ‘tinkers’ in this modernising Ireland was sometimes a source of ‘astonishment’ to these sectors of Irish society. It intimidated their sensibilities, not least because so much in Traveller behaviour, especially their ‘ribald manners’, their vagrancy, their lack of respect for Church, for state and literally for the law of the land, seemed to resemble more the habits of those living in Europe’s far-flung colonial peripheries in India and colonial Africa, than those of an emergent nation-state at the back door to ‘civilised’ Europe. In Ireland’s case also, as indeed in mainland Europe, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a period when history was seen as something ‘fixed’ or ‘settled’. Viewed thus history comprised concrete, albeit discrete, dramas enacted between ‘settled society’, on the one hand, and the forces of ‘nature’ and physical landscape, on the other (Richards 1994:114). In this scenario ‘tinkers’ were considered much closer to the forces of nature and anarchy, than to culture and social progress. Although they clearly lived within Irish society, they were progressively perceived as apart from it, as social ‘pariahs’ and ‘parasites’ who ‘marauded’ on settled society and committed a whole range of petty crimes against it. Having constructed ‘tinkers’ as near ‘savage’, or uncivilised subjects, it was only a matter of time before ‘settled’ Ireland would depict them as ‘expendable’. Like the nomadic Highlanders in Walter Scott’s Romantic narratives of Scottish history, ‘tinkers’ in Ireland at this time were regarded as historical subjects from a different place, and from a ‘barbaric’ epoch in the evolution of modern Ireland. Like Scottish Highlanders they too were perceived as a people who had to be hidden, or ‘used up’ if the narrative of modern Irish history was ever to proceed (Richards 1994:134). It was as if it was the destiny of ‘tinkers’ to be so ‘expended’, sacrificed or dispensed with, so that Irish history could progress.
All of this clearly implied a geography of savagery and ‘uncivility’ which suggested those inhabiting the fringes of Irish society were the most ‘uncivilised’ of all. They were furthest out from the centres of civilization. The ‘tinkers’ from the west of Ireland, especially those who ‘invaded’ Dublin and other Irish cities from the late nineteenth century onwards, were considered the most savage of all, as ‘savage’ as the wild landscapes that once harboured them (Gwynn 1899; Synge 1974; Mac Laughlin 1997). Like the Roma in Europe’s other peripheral regions, they were considered the most ‘exotic’, and the most ‘backward’, because it was believed that they lived in places where nobody went ‘unless they literally lost their way’ (Guy 1975: 202). This suggests a marked overlapping between anti-Traveller racism, on the one hand, and Irish nationalism and rural fundamentalism, on the other, which goes back to the circumstances in which the Irish nation was conceived as a cradle for bourgeois and petty bourgeois respectability (Lloyd 1993:147). Irish nationalism, simply considered as a struggle for the control of territory, has always striven to control population and to produce an Irish ‘people’ as a political community. The Irish nation was a historical system of exclusions and dominations, a place where the patriarchal values of the rural bourgeoisie occupied pride of place, a place where Travellers were scarcely considered as citizens of the state.
Mac Laughlin 1999 136-8 SOCIOLOGY Vol. 33 No. 1 February 1999

Next I answered much of your substantive point

Now to genocide, the proposal that was made was to remove the facilitation of the core element of their ethnic identity, the core element which separates traveller and settled, the nomadic lifestyle. If a party is proposing the removal of the facilitation of this lifestyle as a policy, then this is deliberate and if enacted systematic. As FG are not in a position of power they have not enacted these policies but have signaled intent of following what McVeigh calls the logic of genocide.

So Olivia Mitchell is proposing the removal of the central element of traveller ethnicity, traveller identity, an imposition of settled identity on them. You are demonstrating your own ignorance of the issue of ethnic identity and the necessity that this be fostered and permitted. What traveller's as an ethnic group want and need to maintain their identity is the continued access to halting sites with these being properly facilitated. I refer back to my original point, I know there is a typo here but so what.

truebluedub wrote: »

Now here we have two clear statements one rhetorically proposing genocide the second as we shall see leading to proposal of what is legally deemed genocide. McVeigh writing in 2008 has shown that much of this kind of rhetoric is informed by a genocidal logic using the genocide convention from the UN (convention available here http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm) in a nutshell the attempt to erode the travellers separate ethnicity amounts to genocide from a legal perspective. This can be seen when we take opposition to traveller halting sites into account:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/1105/traveller.html

Now this does not mean that Olivia Mitchell is proposing the eradication of traveller's what she has proposed is the removal of their separate ethnic identity, which as MacVeigh points out is legally genocide. You yourself have indicated that she proposed permanent accomadation which would erode their separate ethnic identity.

InFront wrote: »

Are you for real? I am tempted to call BS on this. The thing is, I don't have an issue with the articles or the papers that you are referring to. It's the story you are trying to cobble together that makes no sense and is to be deconstructed and exposed for being untrue and uninformed.

As an aside, it is very easy to produce newspaper articles as you have done, and construct a theory out of pretty much nothing.

I could equally produce newspaper articles outlining Labours refusal to support a Fine Gael Bill providing for statutory rights for asylum seekers arriving in the state back in 1993, this was borne out of concern for the rights of asylum seekers and protecting them from racist abuse yet Labour rejected it. I could furthermore refer to Labour's Denis O'Callaghan and his opposition to traveller accomodation in Dublin South and call all of that 'genocidal'.
But for one thing, I don't believe it to be the case, and for another, I think I have the awareness to realise people just aren't so dumb as to actually buy any of it.

By all means go ahead but put them in a new thread as this one is about FG and otherwise you'd be off topic. However it is always a useful exercise to demonstrate parties indulging in racism, so I eagerly await your new thread. As I said before I do not mindlessly toe the party line, unlike some. I'll even give you a head start. The first thing you do is go into LEXISNEXIS's newspaper archive (they give a representative sample http://www.lexisnexis.com/uk/nexis/auth/bridge.do?rand=0.7347152226413399) and search for key terms. From your point of view Labour, immigration, Asylum seeker are a good starting point, you add the date range, you seem to have a fair idea of that yourself. Don't forget to indicate you're looking for Irish sources. You then filter this sample by reading them to remove irrelevant ones.
You now have your sample read through them again manually looking for keywords or phrases, taking careful note of what context they are used in and the ideology behind them.
Finally construct your argument like I did looking for free versions of the articles.
And if people don't accept a scientific methodology their problem not mine, I just present the argument.

hobochris

hobochris wrote: »

IMO this thread = FF propaganda.

It reminds me of the Elections in the U.S. where the republicans tried to slander Barack Obama in the public eye instead of highlighting what they intend doing for the people.

I doubt it to be honest.
The case made by the OP is rubbish.
Anyone could see that it is rubbish.
I'm pretty sure the OP knows it's rubbish he's talking.
I've thanked some of the coherent posts in this thread indicative of where my views are here on the matter.
I wouldn't be including the op's posts in a CV when applying for a spin master's job at FF HQ or anything.

Liam Byrne

At this stage I'm completely confused as to what is being quoted from stuff FG people actually said, and what is just third-party "research" being thrown in to muddy the water.

Can we go back to what the FG people actually said, and the context in which it was said, so that we can judge the facts for ourselves, rather than the spin ?

Taxipete29

Does the OP not realise that most opposition party agendas are put together by listening to what their constituants are looking for?? Now while I accept this is not always the case, might it not be better to point the finger at those outside the political arena who have lobbied for these kind of measures???

My point is simple, if it doesnt gain electoral support, political parties especially those in opposition wont touch it.

truebluedub

The post on corruption will be ready by this evening.

Deleted User wrote: »

I doubt it to be honest.
The case made by the OP is rubbish.
Anyone could see that it is rubbish.
I'm pretty sure the OP knows it's rubbish he's talking.
I've thanked some of the coherent posts in this thread indicative of where my views are here on the matter.
I wouldn't be including the op's posts in a CV when applying for a spin master's job at FF HQ or anything.

Why does everybody assume I'm male? or from FF? I'm talking science not spin.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

At this stage I'm completely confused as to what is being quoted from stuff FG people actually said, and what is just third-party "research" being thrown in to muddy the water.

Can we go back to what the FG people actually said, and the context in which it was said, so that we can judge the facts for ourselves, rather than the spin ?

The newspaper (and RTE) articles from the first post are what FG people said, I don't think boards.ie would let me put up the full sample. The academic articles give the social context in which they occur, insuring that people are given the interpretive framework with which they can assess the articles independently.

Taxipete29 wrote: »

Does the OP not realise that most opposition party agendas are put together by listening to what their constituants are looking for?? Now while I accept this is not always the case, might it not be better to point the finger at those outside the political arena who have lobbied for these kind of measures???

My point is simple, if it doesnt gain electoral support, political parties especially those in opposition wont touch it.

Then they are stooping to the lowest common denominator. I've never seen empirical evidence in any study suggesting that the use of the race (or should that be ethnicity if people -not you, others on this thread- want to quibble) card helps or hinders a party in elections, yet still they play it, that's not to say they're not following a focus group's advice.

is_that_so

truebluedub wrote: »

The post on corruption will be ready by this evening.



Why does everybody assume I'm male? or from FF? I'm talking science not spin.



The newspaper (and RTE) articles from the first post are what FG people said, I don't think boards.ie would let me put up the full sample. The academic articles give the social context in which they occur, insuring that people are given the interpretive framework with which they can assess the articles independently.



Then they are stooping to the lowest common denominator. I've never seen empirical evidence in any study suggesting that the use of the race (or should that be ethnicity if people -not you, others on this thread- want to quibble) card helps or hinders a party in elections, yet still they play it, that's not to say they're not following a focus group's advice.

TBH I've seen little here in any of your "scientific argument" that confirms that FG are racist. Although you might want to offer some explanation as to why FG are running some "other ethnic" people for local elections. All I see are large chunks of text by experts totally divorced from the context you've highlighted. Incidentally were your own argument so strong you would not have needed to quote such large tracts. One can only conclude that it is indeed based on a false premise.

What it does appear to confirm is "I think FG are racist because of what two of them said about travellers and I am going to get enough "academic links" to prove that I am right". All you have offered are two pieces of media reports, referring to two individuals whose association with a political entity leads to the inevitable conclusion that the whole entity thinks the same way. Back that up with a barrage of links and copious texts from "academics" and how could it be wrong? If it were true it would be a lot easier to justify than rambling off into some of the texts you "found".


I can't wait for the corruption argument!

Liam Byrne

truebluedub wrote: »

The newspaper (and RTE) articles from the first post are what FG people said

OK, let's look at them:

“They will rape and pillage the area around them for the weekend and leave their dirt and filth for the Council to clean up,” he said.

His outburst followed the weekend encampment of up to 30 caravans, vans and horseboxes at the Promenade in Enniscorthy.

Cllr Kavanagh objecting to visitors leaving a place like a kip. Nothing wrong there. As I said earlier, it could apply to anyone who leaves a place like a kip.

The recent unpublicised encampment by five traveller families from Wexford on yet another school grounds in my own constituency is just one further example of a countrywide series of invasions by members of the travelling community onto private or state property this summer, " said Deputy Mitchell. "All of these invasions have one thing in common ? either the travelling community leave after an expensive court injunction is got, forcing their departure, or they leave 'voluntarily' once the property owner or the local residents pay them 'goodbye money'. The practice was a form of extortion

Cllr Mitchell pointing out that if travellers want to be viewed as citizens, they should act like citizens. Again, 100% fair.

Fine Gael has published a Private Members Bill to give local authorities greater powers to deal with unauthorised traveller camps. The Bill would also make it easier for land owners to get court orders against caravans being placed on their property without permission.

If I ask a farmer can I camp in his field for a weekend or for a festival, and he says yes, then fair enough. If he says no, then I'm not entitled to be there, and it should not be awkward for him to tell me to f**k off.

Why mightn't he want me there ? Well firstly, it's HIS property. And if previous people that he facilitated left the place in a kip that he had to pay to clean up, then I can see his point.

Pavee Point remains "concerned at the issues arising in the fallout from the Padraig Nally case and their adverse effect on Travellers in Irish society."

Pavee Point offer no explanation of why the traveller in question was trespassing, and did not condemn that fact or differentiate between law-abiding travellers and those who don't give a bollox about other's rights.

In taking this stance, they themselves "equated Travellers with crime", because the representative organisation glossed over this, so their statement that "Traveller organisations acknowledge and have consistently challenged anti-social and criminal behaviour by Travellers and will continue to do so." is laughable.

This section said that Pavee Point criticised politicians, in particular, Senator Jim Higgins of Fine Gael who made what it describes as "inflammatory statements about Travellers and their responsibility for rural crime."

No link to Jim Higgins' statements, so there is no way of determining the partiality or otherwise validity of their conclusion.

FOREIGN UNEMPLOYED workers in Ireland could be given a lump sum payment of up to six months' worth of unemployment benefit if they agree to return home, Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar has suggested

If there's no work here for them, then he could just as easily have decided that they can go home without any payoff. If you were in Australia and had no work, you'd be sent / forced home on the next plane without any payoff, which is NOT what he proposed :

The Dublin West TD insisted that a lump-sum benefit payment should not be used "to force them" to return to their home countries, "but as an option".

A type of "redundancy payment", if you like.

So again, while the topic can be debated and has pros and cons (for example, if we do this then it's hypocritical to petition the Americans to keep our illegal and unemployed Irish) but if Spain and Australia have versions of this that are acceptable, why the sensationalist alarm and screams of "racism" ?

By all means discuss and debate the pros and cons, but blanketly calling it racism is bull****.

truebluedub wrote: »

The academic articles give the social context in which they occur, insuring that people are given the interpretive framework with which they can assess the articles independently.

No, it's giving a vested-interest - and in many cases completely out-of-context, unrelated - spin on what was actually said; all of which - in my view - is perfectly valid. And that's a neutral view, since the summary of all of the above is

1) Travellers (or any other visitors) shouldn't litter

2) Travellers aren't automatically welcome, because lots of them have littered; unfair - yes, but also applies to stag parties and rag weeks where some have caused havoc and had a knock-on effect

3) Pavee Point is biased and deflects blame from where it applies in order to scream "victimisation" and "racism"

4) Travellers shouldn't expect payment to move on, and should pay for their own facilities like everyone else has to (even if they were previously free for either them or us); ideally, no-one would have to pay, but we've to pay for our houses and campsites and so they should too

5) We have too many workers in this country, and while we don't want to just eject foreign ones like Australia (we were happy enough while we needed them) we might discuss what Spain has done to see how that might work*

*Personally, I don't agree this would work due to the American Irish issue that I mentioned earlier, but I don't see a problem with proposing it.

All the above are up for discussion, but drop the "racism" and "genocide" bull****.

SeanW

McVeigh writing in 2008 has shown that much of this kind of rhetoric is informed by a genocidal logic using the genocide convention from the UN (convention available here http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm) in a nutshell the attempt to erode the travellers separate ethnicity amounts to genocide from a legal perspective. This can be seen when we take opposition to traveller halting sites into account:
Quote:
FG publishes travellers Bill

Monday, 5 November 2001 22:38
Fine Gael has published a Private Members Bill to give local authorities greater powers to deal with unauthorised traveller camps. The Bill would also make it easier for land owners to get court orders against caravans being placed on their property without permission ...

So, let me get this straight - proposing legislation to allow people to defend their property = Genocide?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I need some help understanding what you're on about, and/or how we expect to put our society right if we put the "rights" of lawbreakers first, and those of normal citizens last?

As to the "repatriation" question: first of all, contrary to the Fianna Failers claim earlier in the thread, the BNP isn't the only one talking about it: Spain has such a scheme in place already.
Secondly, Irelands labour market (and dole lines) is quite crowded firstly because the U.K. and Ireland were the only ones to allow unrestricted access to citizens of new EU states,
Secondly because we've lost a whole load of jobs to the Oriental Far East and in similar volume to Eastern Europe.
Leo Varadkar was just using his common sense - helping some of these people who come from countries with economies that are now growing to go there and play a part in the regeneration of their home countries, is not racist. It's common sense.

Until I read this thread, I had only considered voting for Fine Gael No.1 in the next election. Now I KNOW that I will.

meglome

Deleted User wrote: »

I doubt it to be honest.
The case made by the OP is rubbish.
Anyone could see that it is rubbish.
I'm pretty sure the OP knows it's rubbish he's talking.
I've thanked some of the coherent posts in this thread indicative of where my views are here on the matter.
I wouldn't be including the op's posts in a CV when applying for a spin master's job at FF HQ or anything.

I thought at the start of this we were talking about a few faux pas. But I have to agree with Blackbriar and Liam Byrne, what you're trying to extrapolate from the few comments in your original post is ridiculous, utterly. Again I do give you credit for being a bit more imaginative in your reasoning for not voting Fine Gael but that doesn't change the fact your whole point is nonsense.

truebluedub

truebluedub wrote: »

Why does everybody assume I'm male? or from FF? I'm talking science not spin.

Male is default.
To a certain extent anti FG is FF by default here also.
Everything you posted here so far is pointless nonsense for the reasons already pointed out in posts 23,26,32,38,41 etc etc.

Sully

dlofnep wrote: »

FG are a bunch of slimey twats. No, I wouldn't trust them.

Its not exactly like Sinn Fein are the better option!

Joey the lips

Sully wrote: »

Its not exactly like Sinn Fein are the better option!

Goof one! you managed to link sinn fein in a thread again! People who do this do more for sinn fein than sinn fein can do.

I reackon every thread should start with

"Sinn fein are no good"

So you end up with

"Are the pd;s a waste of space - sinn fein are no good!

"What is the best time to cut your grass - sinn fein are no good"

"How man days start with T - Sinn Fein are no good!"


Do you see how stupid it gets to bring sinn fein into everything! But keep it up you only helping there popularity!

Belfast

if we could trust politicians we would not need elections a written constitution a supreme court or safe guards in general.

No political party can be trusted.

truebluedub

Fine Gael Corruption
What doesn’t count: Olwyn Enright’s sleeping arrangements. While these are questionable from the point of view of ethics, but are within the law and so not corrupt, though they look worse now thanks to the UK’s current scandal.
Corruption can be taken as the passing of funding from an individual or company to a politician or party in the hope of reciprocal influence but not necessarily any specific favour. Since those using a pseudoscientific argument don’t like the use of theory I’ll leave it out and leave their anti-science suggestions intact – even if doing so means I have to rely on the most explicit and therefore most damaging of the articles. Fortunately in this case the activities involved are quite well known so I will not need long quotes to back them up for the most part, and a number are common knowledge so I won’t cite those.
Corruption and condoning corruption
A key word search of LexisNexis (http://www.lexisnexis.com.jproxy.nuim.ie/uk/nexis/auth/bridge.do?rand=0.7347152226413399) for Fine Gael and Corruption brings up 2162 results but this includes comments on corruption by FG members, making up the vast majority of articles and they also include historical examples such as the sweeps.
A number of notable articles arise and they include obvious figures such as the late Tom Hand, Liam Cosgrave, and of course Michael Lowry who I will return to soon.
The most important article in this regard is a whistle-blowing FG member’s [EDIT mistake he's FF] (Michael Smith) comments to the Irish Independent (July 22 2006 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/interesting-times-ahead-for-fine-gael-in-tug-of-loyalties-89102.html)

In his evidence to the tribunal, Smith said he was "appalled that nine out of the 12 Fine Gael councillors who would talk to their internal inquiry had received money from Monarch or Dunlop, or both, in the 1991-1993 period when I was concerned with the Cherrywood vote".

While Sean Barrett, who was referred to in this same article was open with the money Dunlop had given him, he was still under the influence of Dunlop which while not corrupt is a matter of concern. The important point here is that there is evidence [provided by a member of FG error see above] that corruption was endemic.
In fairness to Enda Kenny he has been quick to respond to instances of corruption, however it is clear that current and former party members do not share Mr. Kenny’s scruples. His predecessor John Bruton for example procrastinated over sacking Lowry. But elements of Bruton’s view have survived:

April 21, 2009 Tuesday
A country still in thrall to the likes of Lowry

BYLINE: FINTAN O'TOOLE

SECTION: OPINION; Opinion; Pg. 12

LENGTH: 862 words[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The Tipperary politician is a self-pitying cheat and a liar yet still his career is deemed worth celebrating. Clearly, we have learned nothing, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]ON SATURDAY night in Thurles, 1,400 people gathered to celebrate the political career of Michael Lowry. Prominent among them were two important public figures. Ivan Yates, a former minister for agriculture and a successful businessman, is about to become a national broadcaster with Newstalk radio. Seán Kelly, a highly distinguished former president of the GAA, is a Fine Gael candidate for Ireland South in the European elections. Both are people of substance, with legitimate aspirations to influence public opinion and to help set the tone of public life in Ireland. That such men believe that there is anything worth celebrating in Michael Lowry s political career tells us something quite simple. Nothing has been learned.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Michael Lowry is a cheat and a liar. He entered public life and rose to the highest level of public trust as a member of the cabinet but showed utter contempt both for the law and for his social obligations. Over a decade ago now, Mr Justice Brian McCracken pointed out the appalling damage done by the public perception that a person in the position of a government minister and member of cabinet was able to ignore, and indeed cynically evade, both the taxation and exchange control laws of the State with impunity .[/FONT]

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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0421/1224245071062.html (the rest of the article talks about the depth’s of Lowry’s corruption which need no introduction)
This clearly reflects an attitude among some FG people that Lowry’s unscrupulous actions were right. In such a context can we trust FG not to be corrupt.
Open/honest about the financing
Who funds FG? SIPO’s website (http://www.sipo.gov.ie/en/Reports/AnnualDisclosures/DisclosurebyPoliticalParties/)indicate FG has not revealed its funding sources in the last three years, this is separate from individual TD’s, many of whom have had the integrity to do so most recently Lucinda Creichton, James Reilly and Simon Coveny. Since whoever pays the piper calls the tune whose interests do FG represent? Even FF have begun to show their funding sources, Labour started in the second year, and the socialists and other smaller parties have consistently [FONT=&quot]been upfront but not FG. This brings us to the party’s corruptibility which vested interests does it serve? [/FONT]
We know that in the past FG has along with FF and Labour been in the pockets of Larry Goodman (Understanding corruption in Irish politics, by Neil Collins, Mary O'Shea Cork University Press, 2000 pages 23-5). In the absence of funding disclosures how can we believe that they are not still up to their old tricks? Backing the vested interests of corporate donors.