One of the things that makes Ireland different from the rest of the western world is that we don't have post codes. In 2005 the Government announced that Ireland would have a post code system by 2008. That's when the debate started.
The first thing to emerge is that we can't agree on a system. We can't, for starters, agree that we need a system.
For example, An Post doesn't want a post code system. They claim that there is no need for a code as their address scanning technology does the job just as well and that a new system would be very costly to implement.
But many of the people who argue for a national system say that the words 'post code' shouldn't be used in the first place. This is because the postal service accounts for only a small number of the people who need to know precisely where they are going.
There's the private delivery services. There is the emergency services who regularly report getting lost in rural areas when confusion over addresses arise. There's the problem of bad writing. There's the problem of people making mistakes with 'Road', 'Avenue', 'Close', etc.
There are people who feel that the adoption of a coding system would eat into local identity of townlands, counties and so on.
However, one of the things that there is broad agreement on is that a code should relate directly to the planet. This is increasingly important with the growing popularity of GPS satnav systems and the likes of Google Maps on the internet.
Even at the moment you can use Google Earth to determine your position on the planet and then tell all your delivery services.
For example, I'm writing this column at a desk in our offices in Santry. In latitude and longitude terms the location of this desk is 53 23 32.14 -06 14 55.93. If you get Google maps on your browser and type this in, it will show you where my desk is to an accuracy of about a metre. It's pretty amazing.
It would also show any delivery service exactly where to bring my goods. In fact, many people ring our bell looking for a doctor who can be found about 30 meters up the way. If they had Google maps to hand and the right set of numbers it would save them time and save our bell.
But it's probably asking too much that everybody remember their earth co-ordinates. So we're back to the need for a simple universal system for describing locations.
What is actually required is a system similar to how the internet is organised. Although, like all computer systems, the internet is based on numbers it appears in the real world based on human-friendly names. Therefore, instead of a 12 digit number, our web name is www.dublinpeople.com. It's very easy to remember.
So why not operate Ireland's location codes in a similar way? Simply have a national system where people can register their location under a name. I could be niallgormley88, for example, and anyone who wanted to find me could enter that in a computer and my location would pop-up on screen. I'd be more than just a number.
The latest news is the the new minister Eamon Ryan has shelved the post code idea. It's not exactly clear why. In the meantime, we are going to have to do what we have always done and ask people for directions. And maybe that's not so bad after all.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Ignoring the real segregation in Dublin
The row over school places rumbles on. It's turned into something of a row on racism, an issue sure to trigger middle-class angst.
The problem, as I talked about here last week, is that catholic schools in parts of the Dublin region are full and the schools have taken to giving preference to catholic children.
In some areas this has left some immigrant children stranded without school places. The children, we are given to believe, are mainly of black African ethnicity who are protestants and non-Christians I presume.
So with the spectre of racism hanging in the air, my argument that churches have a perfect right to run their own schools seems to support, in the end, the segregation of children by race. This terrible vista is held up in order to argue for a tightening of the grip of the State on schools.
I smell a lot of something here and it's not roses. In fact, it's stuff you can put on roses to make them grow bigger.
Although race is held up as a terrible division in human society, in fact it's only a minor problem. Race never poses, and has never posed, any problems for any society without one small poisonous ingredient.
Poverty.
So look around this fair city. We already have segregation. If you open your eyes this winter you will see children perished with the cold and undernourished heading to school. You'll see record numbers in the grind schools.
You can read the reports and the league tables. The school you go to largely determines your prospects. There are areas in this town where more of our young people end up in prison than end up in university. I've spoken to social workers and truancy officers and guards and they will tell through gritted teeth that they would be confident enough to go into a bookie and bet on which four-year-old will end up doing smack or doing time.
Our city is segregated by housing estate, by school, by pub, by church, by street.
And all of this, all of it, predates the arrival of blacks, or Poles, or anyone else.
So when our chattering classes get their knickers in a twist over black children ending up in schools of their own and the need for integration - what they mean is that they are worried that the black children will end up in schools with the white underclass that we have already given up on. And if you lie down with dogs...
These are not simple problems. Every parent is duty bound to do the best for their children. Increasingly parents will seek to keep their children out of mediocre performing schools where there are discipline problems, or overcrowding, or bad teachers, or whatever. They are trying to do the best for their kids.
But when we all do this we leave some children behind. And this usually happens on a poverty fault line. If the poor happen to be immigrants then that's where the fault line will show up but race is not the fundamental problem.
The answer lies where it always has lain. In the 1916 Proclamation read out by Padraig Pearse on the steps of the GPO we promised to "cherish all the children of the nation equally". We've made progress but really it's a promise we never kept.
If we treated every Dublin child the way we should, we wouldn't have to worry about what race they are.
The problem, as I talked about here last week, is that catholic schools in parts of the Dublin region are full and the schools have taken to giving preference to catholic children.
In some areas this has left some immigrant children stranded without school places. The children, we are given to believe, are mainly of black African ethnicity who are protestants and non-Christians I presume.
So with the spectre of racism hanging in the air, my argument that churches have a perfect right to run their own schools seems to support, in the end, the segregation of children by race. This terrible vista is held up in order to argue for a tightening of the grip of the State on schools.
I smell a lot of something here and it's not roses. In fact, it's stuff you can put on roses to make them grow bigger.
Although race is held up as a terrible division in human society, in fact it's only a minor problem. Race never poses, and has never posed, any problems for any society without one small poisonous ingredient.
Poverty.
So look around this fair city. We already have segregation. If you open your eyes this winter you will see children perished with the cold and undernourished heading to school. You'll see record numbers in the grind schools.
You can read the reports and the league tables. The school you go to largely determines your prospects. There are areas in this town where more of our young people end up in prison than end up in university. I've spoken to social workers and truancy officers and guards and they will tell through gritted teeth that they would be confident enough to go into a bookie and bet on which four-year-old will end up doing smack or doing time.
Our city is segregated by housing estate, by school, by pub, by church, by street.
And all of this, all of it, predates the arrival of blacks, or Poles, or anyone else.
So when our chattering classes get their knickers in a twist over black children ending up in schools of their own and the need for integration - what they mean is that they are worried that the black children will end up in schools with the white underclass that we have already given up on. And if you lie down with dogs...
These are not simple problems. Every parent is duty bound to do the best for their children. Increasingly parents will seek to keep their children out of mediocre performing schools where there are discipline problems, or overcrowding, or bad teachers, or whatever. They are trying to do the best for their kids.
But when we all do this we leave some children behind. And this usually happens on a poverty fault line. If the poor happen to be immigrants then that's where the fault line will show up but race is not the fundamental problem.
The answer lies where it always has lain. In the 1916 Proclamation read out by Padraig Pearse on the steps of the GPO we promised to "cherish all the children of the nation equally". We've made progress but really it's a promise we never kept.
If we treated every Dublin child the way we should, we wouldn't have to worry about what race they are.
Hands off church schools
It's a funny old town. The schools in the suburbs and satellite towns are packed to the rafters and the schools in the centre are emptying.
Children have been left without school places and the usual suspect, the Catholic Church, has been getting the lion's share of the blame.
Catholic schools have this policy, you see, of favouring catholic children. All around Ireland catholic churches accommodate kids from all religions and none. But in the new areas where houses were built without any thought for the needs of the people who were to live in them, there aren't enough places in catholic schools so they, the catholic schools, give priority to catholic children.
This has greatly offended the great 'liberal' movement of Ireland who think it is the Catholic Church's job to provide an education for everyone. What these secular warriors want is for the church to be ostracised and control of their schools taken away from them. They point out that the state provides 95 per cent of the funding for these schools.
There is nothing liberal whatsoever about this attitude. What will happen if these so-called liberals get their way, is that the state will have the sole right to provide schooling to children in this state. That's zero freedom and zero choice.
The argument about state funding is particularly obnoxious. Catholic parents pay taxes too. As do Church of Ireland parents and Muslim parents. They are entitled to school their children as they see fit.
The State hasn't covered itself in glory on these matters. Local authorities gave planning permission for all these houses. The law is there that developers can be charged fees to support local infrastructure including, presumably, schools. In addition the State is taking a huge dollop out of every house purchase in stamp duty.
So why hasn't the State used some of this money to provide schools? That's the real question. In some cases you could argue that the kids would be better off at home anyway, rather that stuck in a classroom with up to forty other children while a teacher struggles just to maintain sanity.
There is a issue of choice for parents in areas where there is just one catholic school but the way to resolve this isn't to take choice away from everyone. If our 'liberals' are that concerned, why don't they open their own schools.
...and hands off the gaelscoileanna
If English was banned in this country, children here would still speak it for generations to come. The English language permeates every nook and cranny of Irish life. And very useful it is too, as the world's business and cultural second language.
In some gaelscoils the school authorities have a policy of not teaching English for the first two years. This 'total immersion' policy allows children to better absorb the Irish language. But now Minister Mary Hanafin has banned the practice in a typically high-handed state intervention into local school affairs.
The gaelscoileanna movement, which is fighting the good fight against monoculturalism, has taken this as a kick in the teeth, which it is.
The gaelscoileanna has a breathtaking ambition, which is to make Ireland bi-lingual. They should be allowed to get on with it.
Children have been left without school places and the usual suspect, the Catholic Church, has been getting the lion's share of the blame.
Catholic schools have this policy, you see, of favouring catholic children. All around Ireland catholic churches accommodate kids from all religions and none. But in the new areas where houses were built without any thought for the needs of the people who were to live in them, there aren't enough places in catholic schools so they, the catholic schools, give priority to catholic children.
This has greatly offended the great 'liberal' movement of Ireland who think it is the Catholic Church's job to provide an education for everyone. What these secular warriors want is for the church to be ostracised and control of their schools taken away from them. They point out that the state provides 95 per cent of the funding for these schools.
There is nothing liberal whatsoever about this attitude. What will happen if these so-called liberals get their way, is that the state will have the sole right to provide schooling to children in this state. That's zero freedom and zero choice.
The argument about state funding is particularly obnoxious. Catholic parents pay taxes too. As do Church of Ireland parents and Muslim parents. They are entitled to school their children as they see fit.
The State hasn't covered itself in glory on these matters. Local authorities gave planning permission for all these houses. The law is there that developers can be charged fees to support local infrastructure including, presumably, schools. In addition the State is taking a huge dollop out of every house purchase in stamp duty.
So why hasn't the State used some of this money to provide schools? That's the real question. In some cases you could argue that the kids would be better off at home anyway, rather that stuck in a classroom with up to forty other children while a teacher struggles just to maintain sanity.
There is a issue of choice for parents in areas where there is just one catholic school but the way to resolve this isn't to take choice away from everyone. If our 'liberals' are that concerned, why don't they open their own schools.
...and hands off the gaelscoileanna
If English was banned in this country, children here would still speak it for generations to come. The English language permeates every nook and cranny of Irish life. And very useful it is too, as the world's business and cultural second language.
In some gaelscoils the school authorities have a policy of not teaching English for the first two years. This 'total immersion' policy allows children to better absorb the Irish language. But now Minister Mary Hanafin has banned the practice in a typically high-handed state intervention into local school affairs.
The gaelscoileanna movement, which is fighting the good fight against monoculturalism, has taken this as a kick in the teeth, which it is.
The gaelscoileanna has a breathtaking ambition, which is to make Ireland bi-lingual. They should be allowed to get on with it.
New runway to create runaway pollution
Some time ago I produced a diagram in this very column showing how a second runway at Dublin Airport need not send any extra airplanes over Portmarnock.
Some scoffed, some threw their eyes to heaven (and their papers in the bin). Others just pitied me.
And yet, lo and behold, in granting permission for the second runway, right up there in condition number three of the decision is precisely the scheme I outlined. Damn, it good to be right an odd time!
As I also suspected, An Bord Pleanala allowed the runway despite all the objections and opposition, including the opinion of their own planning inspector. The economic arguments, or should I say conventional economic arguments, were always going to be the deciding factor.
But when we get our runway, we'll be getting a host of problems along with it, as the Portmarnock protest group UPROAR very ably pointed out.
Perhaps the biggest problem on the horizon for the airport is the problem of global warming and the growing alarm at the emissions of aircraft. Despite some very impressive new efficiencies in aircraft design, the overall emissions of the airline industry continues to rise with the huge growth in budget airlines.
Airplanes might well be the first target of carbon taxes.
In the future cars will run on renewables generated electricity and hydrogen. That won't work for aircraft. The enormous thrust required to get airplanes off the ground needs jet engines. And jet engines need to burn fuel.
Although many people do not realise this jet engines basically burn a diesel fuel called Jet A. These fuels could be replaced with bio-fuels. While jet engines would still be polluting at least they would be carbon neutral. The Irish government should insist that aircraft using Dublin Airport start burning blended fuels so as to offset any increase in traffic generated by the new runway.
In the longer term, we are going to have to consider seriously building a fixed link to Britain. According to some analyses the Dublin-London air corridor is now the second busiest in the world. And yet Dublin and London are only 300 miles apart, just around the range the the new high speed trains are designed to compete with aircraft. It has to start somewhere. It is unimaginable that in 50 to 100 years from now that Ireland won't have a fixed link to Britain so we should make a start now.
One final point. In recent weeks we have had the Aer Lingus Shannon debacle. We have also had widespread media reports on the dire state of Heathrow where a private company has more interest in providing space for shops than for passengers. The conclusion is this: under no circumstances should the privatisation of Dublin Airport be contemplated. It's just too important to the city and the country to ever fall into private hands. If there has to be competition then so be it, with an airport at Baldonnel or further out. But there must be always some democratic control of our main airport.
Some scoffed, some threw their eyes to heaven (and their papers in the bin). Others just pitied me.
And yet, lo and behold, in granting permission for the second runway, right up there in condition number three of the decision is precisely the scheme I outlined. Damn, it good to be right an odd time!
As I also suspected, An Bord Pleanala allowed the runway despite all the objections and opposition, including the opinion of their own planning inspector. The economic arguments, or should I say conventional economic arguments, were always going to be the deciding factor.
But when we get our runway, we'll be getting a host of problems along with it, as the Portmarnock protest group UPROAR very ably pointed out.
Perhaps the biggest problem on the horizon for the airport is the problem of global warming and the growing alarm at the emissions of aircraft. Despite some very impressive new efficiencies in aircraft design, the overall emissions of the airline industry continues to rise with the huge growth in budget airlines.
Airplanes might well be the first target of carbon taxes.
In the future cars will run on renewables generated electricity and hydrogen. That won't work for aircraft. The enormous thrust required to get airplanes off the ground needs jet engines. And jet engines need to burn fuel.
Although many people do not realise this jet engines basically burn a diesel fuel called Jet A. These fuels could be replaced with bio-fuels. While jet engines would still be polluting at least they would be carbon neutral. The Irish government should insist that aircraft using Dublin Airport start burning blended fuels so as to offset any increase in traffic generated by the new runway.
In the longer term, we are going to have to consider seriously building a fixed link to Britain. According to some analyses the Dublin-London air corridor is now the second busiest in the world. And yet Dublin and London are only 300 miles apart, just around the range the the new high speed trains are designed to compete with aircraft. It has to start somewhere. It is unimaginable that in 50 to 100 years from now that Ireland won't have a fixed link to Britain so we should make a start now.
One final point. In recent weeks we have had the Aer Lingus Shannon debacle. We have also had widespread media reports on the dire state of Heathrow where a private company has more interest in providing space for shops than for passengers. The conclusion is this: under no circumstances should the privatisation of Dublin Airport be contemplated. It's just too important to the city and the country to ever fall into private hands. If there has to be competition then so be it, with an airport at Baldonnel or further out. But there must be always some democratic control of our main airport.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Saving the VB show
So Aer Lingus decide to do the capitalist thing and maximise profits. No wonder there. But why not go the whole hog. If the object is to maximise the use of assets in the pursuit of profit why not sell the airline entirely and invest the money in the arms trade?
There's far more money to be made there. Cluster bombs and land mines have a huge mark-up, I hear.Free market ideology has finally triumphed when the profit motive overwhelms entirly common sense.
But I'm not here to talk about Aer Lingus. I want to talk about the Vincent Browne Show on RTE Radio One. Its demise has been announced. In a similar way to Aer Lingus it has been decided to make better use of the resources that the show uses. So its getting the chop.It's not clear yet what it will be replaced with but current affairs probably won't get a look in. Another music programme is on its way, I suspect.
The VB Show was down to 20,000 listeners. This I seriously doubt. I mean that I doubt that 20,000 people have ever sat down to listen to the show. The nature of radio is that people listen while they are doing something else like driving or ironing clothes.
The 20,000 figure means that this was the average listenership. The number of people listening in was a multiple of this. I know this because I was a listener to the show and I don't think I would ever have listened to it more than two nights in the week. Not because I was trying to avoid it but because I was doing some thing else that didn't allow for listening to the wireless. The occasional listenership was propably near 100,000. Take your pick.
The point is that if you were stuck for something to listen to and you didn't want to listen to the other stations playing music, there it was. A bit of a public servic, if you will.
The question really is why RTE want to pull the plug on a show that has 20,000-100,000 listeners when they have options. One would be to put the show on the internet. Although this is still an underdeveloped medium it is gaining fast and many people now have computers in their kitchen because they want to keep an eye on what the kids are accing on the internet.
A few years ago in the US satelitte radio was unheard of. Now millions of people have bought sets and actually pay a subscription to listen to it. RTE could try something like this.
Another possibility is splitting the waves. RTE Radio One broadcasts on three separate frequencies in Ireland, FM, MW and LW.
Us current affairs types are not all that annoyed about the quality of signal - we would have settled for MW and LW.
Surely, given the options, RTE could have come up with some alternative. If any gig was attracting 20,000 people to a stadium every night it wouldn't be abandoned.
There's far more money to be made there. Cluster bombs and land mines have a huge mark-up, I hear.Free market ideology has finally triumphed when the profit motive overwhelms entirly common sense.
But I'm not here to talk about Aer Lingus. I want to talk about the Vincent Browne Show on RTE Radio One. Its demise has been announced. In a similar way to Aer Lingus it has been decided to make better use of the resources that the show uses. So its getting the chop.It's not clear yet what it will be replaced with but current affairs probably won't get a look in. Another music programme is on its way, I suspect.
The VB Show was down to 20,000 listeners. This I seriously doubt. I mean that I doubt that 20,000 people have ever sat down to listen to the show. The nature of radio is that people listen while they are doing something else like driving or ironing clothes.
The 20,000 figure means that this was the average listenership. The number of people listening in was a multiple of this. I know this because I was a listener to the show and I don't think I would ever have listened to it more than two nights in the week. Not because I was trying to avoid it but because I was doing some thing else that didn't allow for listening to the wireless. The occasional listenership was propably near 100,000. Take your pick.
The point is that if you were stuck for something to listen to and you didn't want to listen to the other stations playing music, there it was. A bit of a public servic, if you will.
The question really is why RTE want to pull the plug on a show that has 20,000-100,000 listeners when they have options. One would be to put the show on the internet. Although this is still an underdeveloped medium it is gaining fast and many people now have computers in their kitchen because they want to keep an eye on what the kids are accing on the internet.
A few years ago in the US satelitte radio was unheard of. Now millions of people have bought sets and actually pay a subscription to listen to it. RTE could try something like this.
Another possibility is splitting the waves. RTE Radio One broadcasts on three separate frequencies in Ireland, FM, MW and LW.
Us current affairs types are not all that annoyed about the quality of signal - we would have settled for MW and LW.
Surely, given the options, RTE could have come up with some alternative. If any gig was attracting 20,000 people to a stadium every night it wouldn't be abandoned.
Building the metro out of gold?
So the Metro North is going to cost us over e5 billion. Yes, that's 5,000,000,000 euro.If you laid all those euros side by side it would go around the world twice. Or something. Anyway, it's an incredible amount of money.Even at a quick glance it is very difficult to see how this kind of figure can be justified. Especially in a building downturn.It's not quite clear how exactly how much of Metro North is going to be in tunnel but if it is from town to north of the airport it is going to be in the region of 12km out of a total of 17km, which will indeed make it expensive. The whole thing, overground and underground, will cost some e294m per km.By comparison, the Metro Sur underground extension in Madrid which opened in 2003 worked out at e45m per km. That's quite a difference.It's such a difference that when the Rail Procurment Agency (RPA) came up with their original estimates there was a huge kerfuffle, Madrid was mentioned in dispatches and they were asked to think again.What they thought about is unknown because, like the proverbial bad uncle, price has never been mentioned again. The new figures were only found out when the Irish Times received some documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The prices were blacked out but not enough for the intrepid Frank McDonald who held them up to the light and discovered all the noughts.The RPA say that they will not release figures because they are commercially sensitive. This is completely at odds with the idea that we should live in an open society. Why aren't the figures published? Why not insist that large contracts like this are put to public tender and open them up to public scrutiny?The history of the world shows that when secrecy is involved people get things wrong. The contact with NTR was not released to the public when the second bridge was commissioned on the same grounds of commercial confidenciality. The public did very, very poorly indeed out of that contract. We are suffering every day, in fact.The danger here is that these huge estimates will undermine the case for the Metro, forgetting that this is a lifetime project of national importance because it links Dublin Airport to the city centre.There's one thing I still can't understand. Why are we talking about Metro? Why aren't we talking about DART? I don't see why we need a new intermediate technology between Luas and DART.I think it has something to do with the metro's lower floor which may be used when it's on the street. If that is so then it doesn't apply to Metro North which will be completely segregated.Whatever the problems they should be sorted out ASAP. The northside has had the sticky end of the stick when it comes to public transport. Whatever the cost Metro North has to get moving soon.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
The O'Reilly verdict was wrong
My gut instinct is that Joe O'Reilly murdered Rachel O'Reilly. That's the real problem with the verdict of the trial because I had the same feeling before the trial started.
Ever since the murder in October 2004 the newspapers, especially the tabloid newspapers, have run stories replete with the thinly concealed belief the Joe O'Reilly was the murderer. There must be grave suspicions that much of the information was passed to the press from within the gardai partly to pressurise Joe O'Reilly during the investigation.
The pivotal evidence in the trial was the mobile phone evidence which placed O'Reilly in the vicinity of his home at the time of the murder and proof that his relationship with Rachel had broken down.
And that's it. No proof whatsoever linking him with the crime scene. No witness or forensic evidence at all.
It's not good enough, you know. My guess is that the prosecution authorities took a chance even going to trial, given the flimsiness of the case. And I honestly don't believe there was enough evidence given in the courtroom to have proven 'beyond reasonable doubt' that he committed the murder.
In fact, it is questionable whether it was possible, given the pre-trial publicity, if a fair trial could have been organised in Ireland at all. If a jury is supposed to be representative of the general population then they would have absorbed a huge amount of information, innuendo and rumour about the case. Ok, so the judge warned them to only consider what they heard in court but it would not be humanly possible to forget or ignore what they had already heard.
The jury didn't come to a quick decision. We don't know what went on in the jury room but outside among the general public, at least to the section I talked to, two things were apparent. Firstly, that most people felt that Joe O'Reilly was guilty and secondly, people were unsure what way the jury would go.
Let's hope that justice was done. But let's acknowledge that a fair trial consists of a jury considering only what they have heard in court. I don't think that's what happened in the O'Reilly case and the verdict should have reflected the evidence.
Control freak opportunism
Regular readers will know that I am disgusted with the creeping authoritarianism of this state. In the wake of the O'Reilly verdict the government slyly lost no time in announcing its intention to bring mobile phones under its control. The idea was to capitalise on sympathy for Rachel O'Reilly to further extend the tentacles of state control.
Never mind that the mobile phone records of Joe O'Reilly and Robert Houlihan had been used to good effect without compulsory registration.
This government despises open systems. Without doubt they would like to abolish cash and open roads as well. In this brave new Ireland we're all potential criminals unless our records say different.
Ever since the murder in October 2004 the newspapers, especially the tabloid newspapers, have run stories replete with the thinly concealed belief the Joe O'Reilly was the murderer. There must be grave suspicions that much of the information was passed to the press from within the gardai partly to pressurise Joe O'Reilly during the investigation.
The pivotal evidence in the trial was the mobile phone evidence which placed O'Reilly in the vicinity of his home at the time of the murder and proof that his relationship with Rachel had broken down.
And that's it. No proof whatsoever linking him with the crime scene. No witness or forensic evidence at all.
It's not good enough, you know. My guess is that the prosecution authorities took a chance even going to trial, given the flimsiness of the case. And I honestly don't believe there was enough evidence given in the courtroom to have proven 'beyond reasonable doubt' that he committed the murder.
In fact, it is questionable whether it was possible, given the pre-trial publicity, if a fair trial could have been organised in Ireland at all. If a jury is supposed to be representative of the general population then they would have absorbed a huge amount of information, innuendo and rumour about the case. Ok, so the judge warned them to only consider what they heard in court but it would not be humanly possible to forget or ignore what they had already heard.
The jury didn't come to a quick decision. We don't know what went on in the jury room but outside among the general public, at least to the section I talked to, two things were apparent. Firstly, that most people felt that Joe O'Reilly was guilty and secondly, people were unsure what way the jury would go.
Let's hope that justice was done. But let's acknowledge that a fair trial consists of a jury considering only what they have heard in court. I don't think that's what happened in the O'Reilly case and the verdict should have reflected the evidence.
Control freak opportunism
Regular readers will know that I am disgusted with the creeping authoritarianism of this state. In the wake of the O'Reilly verdict the government slyly lost no time in announcing its intention to bring mobile phones under its control. The idea was to capitalise on sympathy for Rachel O'Reilly to further extend the tentacles of state control.
Never mind that the mobile phone records of Joe O'Reilly and Robert Houlihan had been used to good effect without compulsory registration.
This government despises open systems. Without doubt they would like to abolish cash and open roads as well. In this brave new Ireland we're all potential criminals unless our records say different.
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