Alex White dublin Archives

Directly-elected Dublin Mayor could be positive change to democracy

10th February 2010

The events of recent days give rise to very important issues which go beyond the personalities concerned. There is a need to have a debate on the nature and quality of representation and what we can expect from politicians and people in public life. I have just come from a meeting of the Joint Committee on the Constitution which is wrestling with issues pertaining to the electoral system and the nature and quality of representation that Deputies and public representatives are able to offer.

Leaving aside who he or she may be, the introduction of a directly elected mayor of Dublin has the potential to bring about positive and important change to our system in terms of representation and the quality of democracy in the city. I note in this morning’s newspapers that the Local Government (Office of the Dublin Mayor and Regional Authority of Dublin) Bill was apparently discussed in Cabinet yesterday. Can they not publish the scheme of the Bill now? If we have to await its publication next week or in the coming weeks, it will not be possible to have the quality of debate we need on such a profound change. I strongly support the proposal in principle and I want it to work.

There may not be sufficient time for proper debate on the very real changes that could come about. We may need to amend a host of legislation if the proposal is to work. It is not possible to introduce a stand-alone Bill on a directly elected mayor of Dublin without amending local government legislation and, perhaps, the planning and development Acts. If I argue that we need more time when the Bill is published sometime in the next three or four weeks, I do not want to be accused of raising obstacles simply because I want to debate it properly. I ask for sufficient time to tease out the issues and if we have to amend other legislation to improve the quality of our democracy, let us do so.

Young Scientists Exhibition

29th January 2010

Earlier this month, I met some young people from the constituency at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition. The projects were all very impressive. Above, you see me trying out an exhibit from Andrej Pacher of Rockbrook Park School. His exhibit was a ‘General Use Augmented Reality Project (GUARP)’.

Below, I meet Kate Lally and Lauren McCauley from St Colmcille’s Community School whose project was entitled ‘The Fear Factor: Who is more daring?’

Further water updates…

15th January 2010

Constituents continue to have problems with water supply in Dublin South. While the problems are not as widespread as they were earlier in the week, they continue to be a hindrance to households. The following is the latest information at 1500 on Friday.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council

Central Park, Leopardstown area, Balally, Sandyford Industrial Estate, South County Business Park will be without water or suffer a severe reduction in water pressure until 11 am on Saturday January 16.

Mount Merrion/ Stillorgan/Kilmacud/Goatstown areas will be without water or suffer a severe reduction in water pressure until 11 am on Saturday January 16.

Pine Valley, Kilcross, Kingston, Kellystown,Ticknock Hill, Simons Ridge, Woodpark, Ludford, Ballinteer Avenue, will be without water or suffer a severe reduction in water pressure until 11 am on Saturday January 16.

Further updates on www.dlrcoco.ie

South Dublin County Council

The council say that supplies in the local reservoir are still critically low and they will continue to stop or curtail supplies over the weekend.

The burst water main on the Knocklyon Road will be repaired tomorrow morning, however, there should be no interuption to supply.

Further updates on www.sdcc.ie

No certainty what NAMA will bring

10th November 2009

Yesterday, the Bill that will introduce NAMA began its journey through the Upper House. The Government have insisted that the legislation must be back in the Dail by Thursday, giving the Seanad three days to deal with the Bill. Below is my Second Stage speech. Keep with the site or with the Facebook page for further updates.

It is true there are no certainties in this matter. There can be no certainty on anybody’s part. In particular, the Minister cannot be certain that what he hopes will occur will actually transpire. There can be no certainty associated with the assertion that matters will come right. None of us can be certain with regard to what is going to occur. That is a measure of how momentous and serious is this debate.

We have reached the 11th hour and the Government has signalled that the legislation will return to the Lower House on Thursday, which constitutes a curtailment of the debate in this Chamber. In such circumstances, there is a sense of inevitability regarding Members’ approach to this debate. However, this should not mean we should set aside our serious and genuine objections to what the Minister is proposing.

Like other Senators, I recognise the Minister’s good faith about the way he has approached this matter. I sometimes feel uncomfortable making that point in respect of Government Ministers. I assume good faith on the part of members of the Government, whereas other Senators often use half of the time available to them to inform a Minister that he or she is a great man or woman. I operate on the basis that the Minister for Finance is doing a professional job for the country and believe this is also the basis on which he operates. He does not, therefore, require to be congratulated. In so far as it is important to say so - particularly on a personal level - the Minister’s input has been considerable, if wrong-headed, in recent months. However, that input has been solely motivated by the need to act in the very best interests of the country.

Unfortunately, in the context of what has occurred in the past 15 years, the Minister is dealing with a legacy created by the Government and his party, as a component thereof. It is fine for Senator MacSharry to express his frustration and annoyance that this point continues to be raised. I will not treat him to a few minutes’ worth of material on the Galway tent. Owing to time constraints, I will not refer at all to the history of Fianna Fáil, its associations, etc. but if I had time, I would gladly do so. I am referring to Fianna Fáil as the party of Government; I am not dealing now with its historic links with the building industry or anything else. Fianna Fáil was in office when our current difficulties emerged. It was in power when my party brought forward proposals in the late 1990s to examine the matter of house prices.

At that time my party argued, in trenchant terms, that there was no requirement to amend the Constitution in order to implement the principal recommendations made in the Kenny report which was published over 35 years ago. These issues were canvassed and debated during the lifetime of the last two or three Administrations. It is not satisfactory for those opposite to simply state they are not to blame and that everything happened around them and that they had nothing to do with it. That is simply not the case.

Closure of Care Unit yet another example of State’s failure to protect children

5th November 2009

The revelation that the leading children’s Special Care Unit in Ireland must close is yet another example of the State failing children, according to Labour’s Spokesperson on Children, Senator Alex White.

“The Minister for Children must explain how conditions at the Special Care Unit in Ballydowd became so unacceptable that there was no option but to close. I would question why it took the HIQA inspection report to recommend ‘urgent action’, before this issue was raised with the Minister responsible.

“The report highlights the ‘serious difficulties of trust’ between management and staff. This was taking place at what was meant to be the leading care unit in the State. It appears that the failure began when the €13 million facility opened only nine years ago.

“There must be immediate assurances that the children currently in the care unit are transferred in a dignified and safe manner.

“It is another addition to the catalogue of this government’s failures on children. Following the publication of the Ryan Report, the Minister promised that ‘the State must now and in the future, deliver care services that nurture and support children.’ The closure of this facility is another striking example of the government’s lamentable failure to deliver such care services.”

More :: Click here to read the HIQA Inspection Report (PDF)

Union members perfectly entitled to protest

4th November 2009

In respect of the day of protest scheduled for this Friday and the general issues pertaining to the trade union response to events, members of trade unions are perfectly entitled to take a day of action and to protest on the streets of their capital city. Not only are they so entitled but they are perfectly justified in so doing. Every time one makes a point about, for example, NAMA or some other issue pertaining to the economy, Members on the Government side ask, perhaps justifiably, what is one’s alternative. Practically five minutes into a discussion on the subject, the refrain from Members on the other side is what is one’s alternative.

I ask those who criticise trade union members who are taking to the streets and considering industrial action what alternative do they propose. What alternative do they propose to people who can see their living standards have dropped and who can see no real stake in the future? The problem people have is there is no clarity and they can see absolutely no stake into the future regarding how these issues should be dealt with in budgetary terms. What alternative is proposed by those people who fill the airwaves with criticisms of trade unions being lunatics and everything else?

Stop NAMA Protest - Wednesday 1pm

14th September 2009

If you are free this Wednesday 16th September please come along to Labour’s STOP NAMA Protest at 1pm outside Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. We want as many people as possible to join Labour’s TDs, Senators and activists to oppose NAMA.

The Labour Party has been consistent in our opposition to the NAMA plan since it was first mooted by Fianna Fail. Our banking system has been brought to its knees by the rampant greed and speculation of our banks and developers. Together with Fianna Fail they make up a ‘toxic triangle’ that has destroyed our economy, sending Ireland into the deepest, and maybe even the longest, economic depression of any advanced economy since the Second World War.

There is the real danger under the NAMA plan that the government will end up paying grossly inflated prices for properties, placing a financial millstone around not just the current generation of taxpayers, but possible the next generation also.

I know that it is a working day and that not everyone will be available, but I am appealing to you to turn out on Wednesday. Let your family, friends and work colleagues know that it is on. Encourage them to turn out. Use word of mouth, email, text messages – whatever you can do.

Help us make this demonstration a success and it will greatly increase the pressure on Fianna Fail and the Green Party to abandon this plan. NAMA must be stopped.

Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009

15th July 2009

The Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2009 was debated in the Seanad for over eight hours yesterday and ultimately passed without amendment late last night. This is from my Second Stage speech:

I made the point on the Order of Business earlier that, unfortunately and regrettably, there did not seem to be much point in debating this legislation because the Government was clearly intent on not accepting any amendments, and that this would render our debate somewhat irrelevant. The Leader, Senator Donie Cassidy shook his head in response to my comment, which I took to be an indication that he disagreed with me. Senator Terry Leyden then indicated to the House that if amendments were brought before the House that the matter could be dealt with during the course of the summer. The Minister has now put that issue at rest and has made it very clear, in no uncertain terms, that no amendments to this legislation will be accepted by the Government and that, to use his words, “we need this legislation now”. Let us be clear about this, there is no intention on the part of Government to permit this House to amend this legislation in any respect today or on any other day.

Notwithstanding the Government’s view as to whether we should be listened to in this House on this legislation, we still have to reflect on our role as legislators. We are paid to come here by the people to deal with legislation. As to what is our role, I accept that the Government has a very particular role, perhaps an enhanced one in the sense that it has the expertise and advice of the Garda available to it and it is dealing on a day to day basis, operationally and in policy terms, with the management of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Therefore, it is in a position of expertise far greater than anything available to any of us. I accept that. That is how the system works.

Let us examine our role. I do not wish to oversimplify it but it appears to be the case that a Minister comes to the House to inform us of the changes that need to be made to the law because there is a problem that needs to be addressed and he outlines the changes he proposes we should make. It is our role to ask him to tell us why that is the case and to demonstrate it to us. We then consider whether that explanation is adequate and we either vote for or against the proposals brought by the Minister. I accept that is an oversimplification but it is not an unreasonable description of our role.

If I am correct in that are we not entitled to ask the Minister to do more than simply assert the need for certain legislation? The Minister must demonstrate the need for it to us. He must show us why it is necessary, not just simply by anecdote, the expression of his opinion or the communication to us indirectly of an opinion given to him by the Garda. He must give us some evidence on which we can take the rest of the argument in trust that what he says is necessary. I cannot, and do not, exclude the possibility - I say this genuinely - that these measures are necessary, but I am not prepared to agree to them simply by it being asserted to me without any evidence or convincing argument - in some cases without any argument at all - as to why they are necessary.

This is very serious legislation. We are dealing with the curtailment of rights and the liberty of the citizen, irrespective of what he or she is accused of, and in view of this we are under a bounden duty to exercise the strictest possible scrutiny of any such proposal. That is all I am interested in doing. Senator Quinn, and to some extent Senator Boyle, have expressed the hope that the Minister will return with responses to some of the questions that have been raised. I do not know whether the Minister will do so when he replies to Second Stage. However, he has made it clear that he does not intend moving from his position. That puts us in a very odd position in terms of trying to debate the issue, or any expectation we might have that the Minister might address any of the difficulties we have.

Directly elected mayor must have real authority

16th June 2009

Alex with (L-R) Senator Ivana Bacik, Joan Burton TD and newly elcted Deputy Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Kevin Humphreys last month

I wish send my congratulations to my colleague, or as they say in the European Parliament, my dear colleague, former Senator Alan Kelly who is now a Member of the European Parliament. We are congratulating many people who have been elected to positions in local authorities around the country, mayoralties and so on. It is right we should congratulate them. However, we are reminded by this, unfortunately, of the constraints and limitations in the powers of elected mayors, deputy mayors and local authority members throughout the country. This is a timely occasion to raise this issue. Last week I asked the Leader of the Seanad to arrange a debate in the House about Dublin. In early or mid-May, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government made an announcement in respect of a directly elected mayor for Dublin and, perhaps, other cities.

I would like an early debate on how and in what manner the Minister intends the directly elected mayor to operate, because he has made significant claims in that regard. He said on 13 May, “I am making the most significant change to leadership in Dublin since the foundation of the State.” That is a big claim and I would like to understand how the mayoralty of Dublin will work. What sort of legislation is it proposed to introduce? I presume there will be legislation, because if there is not, there will be no changes in the powers.

I, like many others in the country, would enthusiastically support the position of directly elected mayor, but it must be a position of power. It must be a position that has real authority associated with it. Otherwise, it simply grafts a post onto the existing weak system of local government. I made the point previously in the House that we have a very weak parliament in Ireland. We have an even weaker system of local government. We now have a good opportunity to debate these issues.

More :: Read Labour’s ‘Fair Deal for a Fair City’ by clicking here

Category: dublin